The Associated Students of Madison highlighted the importance of registering more students to vote in the upcoming November election in their first meeting of the semester Wednesday evening.
Student Council welcomed Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl to speak about special registration deputy training. Members of the council were deputized and are now able to register voters; a step they are taking to increase student voter turnout.
“Students and student-age people usually turn out in the lowest numbers,” Gen Carter, ASM chair, said. “So we really want to mobilize students, teach them about their voting rights, make sure they’re registered, aware and ready to participate.”
Brad Peltin, chair of the Voter Registration Campaign, and Tom Gierok, chair of ASM’s Legislative Affairs committee, spoke at Student Council about strategies they have developed over the summer and are implementing this fall to register voters.
Members like Jessica Franco-Morales have been appointed to the recently created positions of Student Vote Organizers to reach out to student organizations and recruit students in both Memorial Union and Union South. SVO’s have already registered 1,500 students to vote and their goal is to reach 5,000 by Sept. 15.
“Eighteen-to-24-year-olds turn out to vote in the lowest numbers, which causes lawmakers to neglect student’s issues,” Peltin said. “When students begin to vote in higher numbers than lawmakers will recognize that students are keeping them in office and, in turn, direct more attention to their issues.”
ASM is also directing their attention to the implementation stages of the diversity plan, which will be a major point of discussion at Student Council meetings from this point forward. Dolly Wang, chair of the Diversity Committee, spoke Wednesday about reaching out to all communities – especially those in the minority, such as international students.
“The diversity plan was passed last year by shared governance bodies,” Carter said. “But now we’re moving into the implementation phase. I think it’ll be really important for students to be very active and very present in those conversations, especially communities of campus that have not been engaged in those conversations so far.”
Gierok also spoke about the increased need for advocating for financial aid and affordable higher education.
Policies have been drafted for the state biennial budget, and a budget presentation is in the works for ASM.
“We have the state biennial budget coming up,” Carter said. “We’re going to be advocating for increases in financial aid, making sure that tuition stays accessible and affordable, and that higher education is a priority for people who are in positions of power.”
ASM is holding a kickoff ceremony Thursday, Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. in Humanities 3650, where Carter said she hopes students will be able to further express which issues they prioritize.
“For any student that is looking to get involved with ASM, I would recommend coming to one of the grassroots committee meetings,” Carter said. “That’s the place where they’re going to be able to talk about the issues that are most affecting them, and actually create an action plan.”
