419 Grinnell Votes in with a Month to Spare
October 10th, 2006 at 04:07pm Geraldine
You’ve probably noticed that our blogging has been pretty light in the past week or so, as we’ve been focused on preparing for on campus satellite voting. Well, yesterday was the big day, and I think it went very well.
Four hundred and nineteen people cast ballots in the Forum South Lounge, including 50 new voter registrations. In 2002, only 95 people participated in satellite voting, with only 200 students voting at all. We’ve already doubled turnout on campus, and we’ve still got a month to go. Our 25+ volunteers, some of whom even wore fake mustaches in solidarity with ‘stached campus favorite Eric Palmer, should be very proud of themselves.
We did experience some hurdles in the morning, as there was confusion amongst the county auditor’s volunteers about whether students needed to reregister to their dorms instead of using the post office as their address, as it has always been done. This would have meant reregistering the entire campus, including the hundreds of first-years who registered since August. By mid-morning the problem was cleared up, and the wait to vote got cut quite a bit, to our relief.
I think a lot of us were also frustrated by the reaction of some of our peers to our GOTV strategy. By definition, any successful GOTV effort looks a little harassing. Grinnell has a (loveable) tendency to be a bubble for liberal idealists, and so the idea that number of votes is the bottom line determining who governs our country is a little hard to swallow for many. A high-gear GOTV campaign is also pretty startling to our usually quiet campus. The truth is, it’s worth it to annoy five people to get to the one who doesn’t know there’s an election going on. I hope when the dust settles, our peers will be forgiving of our incessant door knocking, calling, flyering, and well, harassment. When we have a Democratic House giving Bush a run for his money, Chet advocating for education and women’s rights in the governor’s mansion, and Eric Palmer raising the minimum wage in the State House, it’ll all be worth it, I promise.
All told, a valiant effort. Thanks to everyone who put in hours and hours of volunteering, and to everyone who voted. We’ve made a great start, and now it’s time to gear up for the dash to the November finish line.
Related Posts
- Kurt Cobain for Grundy County Attorney
- Iowa State Senate’s Most Vulnerable Seats
- House Bans TouchPlay
- John Kerry at Grinnell College (Reminder and Update)
- Grinnell College Students Say No to Surge
Entry Filed under: Miscellaneous, Campaign 2006, Gubernatorial, Iowa Legislature, Iowa Cabinet, US Congress, Events, Opinion, State Politics, Voting Rights, Campus Democrats
Related Searches: new voter registrations, fake mustaches, quiet campus, eric palmer, county auditor
1 Comment Add your own
1. Iowa Progress » Kur&hellip | January 2nd, 2007 at 2:12 pm
[…] What isn’t listed is the number of voters who were turned away from the polls because they weren’t registered to vote or weren’t registered to vote at that precinct or county. Even turning away one person damages our democracy. It’s absurd that anyone who wants to vote gets turned away. But it’s a by-product of our very flawed system of voter registration. Everytime that someone moves, they have to fill out a brand new form and if they haven’t filled out their form in time, they get disenfranchised. The result is a system that not only produces adminstrative issues at the polls like those we experienced in October but, more importantly, keeps people from voting. The one easy solution is same day registration, which allows someone to register and vote on the same day. Our neighbors in Minnesota and Wisconsin have this, as well as our early primary rival, New Hampshire. In fact, speaking of early primaries, you can register to vote when you show up at your precinct caucus in 2008, but you can’t do so for the General Election. […]
Leave a Comment
Some HTML allowed:
<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
Trackback this post | Subscribe to the comments via RSS Feed