A new program hopes to increase the number of college students involved in the election process with the help of a $53,000 grant.
The Annette Strauss Institute for Civic Participation at the University enacted the new Help American Vote College Poll Worker Program, which will recruit and train university students to be non-partisan poll workers for the 2009 and 2010 elections.
The institute is one of 13 in the nation to receive a $53,000 grant from the United States Election Assistance Commission to increase and foster student participation in the election process.
Deborah Wise, director of educational outreach for the institute, said that the program will increase participation in the election process for a newer generation.
“[The program] is working to increase understanding and participation of college students in elections as well as increase civic engagement,” Wise said.
The UT poll worker program plans to collaborate with other campus organizations and universities in Travis County to recruit a variety of people, including bilingual, minority and disabled students, to facilitate communication and participation in the upcoming elections.
According to the 2004 EAC Election Day Survey, 5.8 percent of polling places and 4 percent of precincts reported having too few poll workers. The average voter in Travis County is 72 years old.
Ashlyn Gentry, coordinator of the poll worker program, said the grant provides an opportunity for the University to create social networking programs to recruit college students to work the polls. The program also plans to increase student participation in elections by engaging in peer-to-peer recruitment campaigns through independent studies classes and social media outreach methods such as Facebook.
“College students with the basic technological skills that we have, just by being able to work Facebook, are certainly able to work poll elections,” Gentry said. “We’re always looking for opportunities to get college students more engaged in politics.”
The institute hopes to register 50 young people for each election through 2010. The program will also fund surveys to find out how valuable students think their votes are in national, state and local electiowns in order to identify better methods for reaching out to younger students.
“They get to figure out how the election process works and how they view their vote differently after working on election day,” Gentry said.
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