Students across campus are offering the latest in election year barters - a political voice for a vote.
Voice Your Vote, a non-partisan organization developed on campus in anticipation of the '96 election, has released its soldiers on the Diag, in the residence halls and all over campus to register University students. The deadline to register for the Nov. 5 election is Oct. 5.
The group has registered 3,200 students this semester, and is working toward a goal of 8,000, said co-chair Jae Jae Spoon. Spoon, who also serves as chair of the College Democrats on campus, said a non-partisan organization can be more effective in attracting students to register.
"More students can be registered if it's not politically related," she said. Spoon said registration workers don't ask students political about their affiliations as they register.
Voice Your Vote representatives are scheduled to register voters outside Hill Auditorium during Rev. Jesse Jackson's speech Monday and to work later this month with the MTV "Choose or Lose" bus on campus.
The program can register students to vote in Ann Arbor or in their hometowns. Students can also obtain forms to request absentee ballots at the registration sites.
Although the Motor Voter Law allows students to register from campus for home districts in Michigan and other states, the group encourages students to register, or re-register, in Ann Arbor, said Ryan Friedrichs, Voice Your Vote co-founder and MSA Voter Registration Task Force chair. Students tend to be more aware of the issues, and make more of an impact on local elections near campus, he said.
Jeff Shore, an LSA junior, said he is registered in his hometown, but would re-register in Ann Arbor if it were convenient and easy.
"If I ran into (the registration workers) then I guess I'd just do that," Shore said.
Although the College Democrats are participating in Voice Your Vote, College Republicans President Nicholas Kirk said the College Republicans will not be taking part in the program. The GOP group will register students at College Republican meetings, he said.
"Non-partisan groups only register liberals on this campus," Kirk said.
Kirk said he re-registered in Ann Arbor through Voice Your Vote earlier this week.
More registered voters can translate into greater legislative priority for student issues, Friedrichs said.
"There's a direct correlation between your voting record and (the attention politicians pay to) your issues," Friedrichs said.
Friedrichs said he learned from visiting government offices that politicians protect issues of constituencies, such as the elderly, whose votes they need.
"If the youth doesn't vote, their issues are not going to be important - that was very, very obvious," Friedrichs said.
As well as influencing the issues candidates talk about, University students can have a great impact on local races, Spoon said. The University's student body provides more than 35,000 potential voters for national and local elections. A presidential election, however attracts more students to the polls and the campaign volunteer sites.
"Because there's a presidential race people get more into it," said LSA sophomore Karen Buck. "There's been more of a push."
JOE WESTRATE/Daily
Jae Jae Spoon, an LSA senior and an organizer for Voice Your Vote, helps LSA junior Courtney Kerker with her voter registration yesterday afternoon on the Diag.