New Voters Project aims to bring voters to the polls

by Carrie Breneman, News reporter

In an effort to bring students to the voting polls Tuesday, workers with the New Voters Project recruited throughout Thursday and are continuing today at various campus locations, such as Memorial Union and College Library, as well downtown locations like State Street Brats and Catacombs Coffee House. The group recruited about 60 students per hour Thursday and hopes to register 1000 by Friday.

The project is aiming to register more than 260,000 new voter nationwide before the November election, and the New Voters Project is planning on registering 17,000 in the Madison area alone.

The New Voters Project is focusing its recruitment efforts on six states: Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon and Wisconsin.

17,000 new voters in the Madison area may seem like a large undertaking, but Evan Mitz, a Madison representative for the group, is confident with the group’s goal.

“Every time you move, you need to register,” Mitz said, adding many new voters are within the Madison area every time a new class is registered.

The New Voters Project is a non-partisan, grass roots campaign and is funded by the Pew Charitable Trust and the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management. Student interns and volunteers staff the project.

The New Voters Project gets their word out through publications, and representatives spread the word through classes on campus.

While focusing their attention on Madison, the project is working closely with campus student groups. The Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group College Democrats and College Republicans are only a few of the student groups the New Voters Project is working with to recruit new voters.

The project on the Madison campus began at the beginning of the Spring 2004 semester. UW became involved with the project because Wisconsin has a large number of eligible young voters. Additionally, Wisconsin holds a significant number of electoral votes and acts as a swing state in elections, according to Garry.

Representatives from the group are also visiting Madison Area Technical College and Edgewood College in hopes of recruiting new student voters. The New Voters Project recently started off-campus recruitment projects.

According to Erica Garry, another representative from the New Voters Project, registering to vote is not a difficult project.

“It literally takes one minute,” Garry said, adding she became involved in the New Voters Project because voting has a huge impact on her future and whoever is elected today will make a difference down the road when she is older.

Garry said anyone could vote as long as they can prove residence and have an ID. Registering students fill out a form with their name, address, whether they are a citizen or not and the last four digits of their social security number.

In the November 2004 election, 10,000 people from the Madison campus voted.