Bruins discuss methods, plan events to increase student voter turnout
USAC External Vice President Rafi Sands met with 15 students Saturday to brainstorm campaigning strategies for increasing student voter registration. (Deanna Necula/Daily Bruin)
By Deanna Necula
Sept. 25, 2016 6:55 p.m.
Students campaigning for voter registration held a meeting Saturday to discuss how they will reach their goal of registering 15,000 students on campus to vote before the Oct. 24 deadline.
About 15 students met with Rafi Sands, the undergraduate student government external vice president, to brainstorm campaigning strategies for increasing student registration rates in upcoming elections. Volunteers and members of organizations such as Bruin Democrats and Vote for Our Future attended the event under the umbrella coalition BruinsVote! campaign. The meeting was open to all students.
At the meeting, Sands told attendees that voter registration campaigns should simplify the process for students, because registering can often be a challenge for them.
“Students have a really tough time voting because every time you move (from one dorm to another) you have to re-register to vote,” he said. “The voter registration form is also nonintuitive for students, and many fill them out incorrectly, so they think they’re registered to vote when they’re actually not.”
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The meeting was also designed to help campaigners familiarize themselves with the registration form so they can help students fill them out correctly.
Austin Steinhart, a second-year political science and economics student and president of Vote for Our Future, advised campaigners to explicitly tell students the correct order they should write their name in the application. He also said campaigners should draw attention to sections that are often skipped.
Attendees also discussed their future outreach plans.
One of the major planned events is Turnout Tuesday, in which different coalitions on campus will establish mock voting booths in Bruin Plaza, host local lawmakers as speakers, and set up activities like carnival games and raffles. The event will be hosted every Tuesday until the Oct. 24 voter registration deadline, Sands said.
Volunteers should aim to register students in lines at different campus events and dining halls such as De Neve Late Night, football games and the Ackerman Union textbook store, he added. Sands said he thinks students in line are easier for campaigners to approach than students walking on campus.
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Sands said he thinks boosting student registration rates is critical because college students have historically low rates of voter turnout and yet have much at stake in the presidential election and California ballot measures.
“UCLA’s tuition is increasing and we’re moving away from a public, affordable education,” Sands said. “This year is probably the first year in a long time that college affordability has been a platform in the presidential elections. And yet, (college students) simply do not vote – they do not do the most basic thing to change our society.”
Sands added he thinks many 2016 California ballot measures, like Proposition 64, which aims to legalize marijuana and hemp, and Proposition 62, which would repeal the death penalty, have direct impacts on students and their communities, which he said should call for student involvement.
“We want students’ voices not just to be heard, but to be heard collectively,” Sands said.
