US students rally college voters on campus: ‘We brought the polls to them’
Originally published by Rachel Leingang and Victoria Bekiempis for the Guardian
College students formed a steady line outside a campus art museum to vote early on Tuesday at a pop-up polling place at the University of Minnesota.
The one-day site, enabled by new state laws that allow for pop-up early voting, helps populations like student voters, who may not have access to transportation to get off campus, easily access the polls.
“We brought the polls to them,” said Riley Hetland, a sophomore and undergraduate student government civic engagement director, who helped plan the event.
Hetland said the group has been going to classrooms and hosting tables around campus for weeks to get people registered to vote and help them make a plan to cast ballots. So far, they have gotten 12,000 students to pledge to vote, double their goal of 6,000, a sign of the enthusiasm young people have to perform their civic duty in the presidential election, she said. More than 600 people voted during the seven hours the pop-up site was open on Tuesday, organizers said.
Across the country, college campuses and campaigns have ramped up efforts to register and energize college voters, especially in critical swing states. The Democratic party is counting on high turnout on college campuses, which tend to lean Democratic..
Kamala Harris’s campaign on Wednesday announced it was launching an early voting push targeting students on campuses in battleground states, including a seven-figure ad buy to primarily target students on social media.
College campuses are also organizing their own get-out-thevote efforts. At the University of California Berkeley, hundreds of students came together recently for an event called Votechella, which featured music and on-site voter registration, the state university system said. The name is a nod to Coachella, the popular music festival held annually in southern California.