BruinsVote! campaign events exhibit low student turnout

Behind a crowd of about 100 students lay dozens of unclaimed chairs and a barely used photo booth. Though the room is able to hold 2,000 people, students clustered mostly around the stage at the BruinsVote! concert Friday night.

To the side, Pat Simmons, a fourth-year physics student, and his friend were planning to run to the front of the stage to see Talib Kweli perform. They said they weren’t worried about fighting for space.

“It’s not hard. Nobody is here,” Simmons said.

The BruinsVote! concert, hosted by the Undergraduate Students Association Council External Vice President’s office, was part of a week of events meant to encourage students to register to vote in the Nov. 4 midterm election.

Because of little interest in statewide races and propositions, low levels of voter enthusiasm are widely expected for the midterm election. In the primary election in June, 18.4 percent of eligible voters in California voted, the lowest since 1916.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of youth who vote has been the lowest of any population in every presidential election in at least the past 50 years.

To combat those numbers, this year’s External Vice President’s office had aimed to register more than 5,000 students to vote by Monday, the last day to sign up. As of Monday, USAC External Vice President Conrad Contreras said that more than 2,000 students have registered through his office events and online voter registration sites the office set up in collaboration with other groups.

“It’s unfortunate that the time we had was very short,” said Contreras, who had less than three weeks to reach the goal.

Contreras said he couldn’t offer a more specific number of registered students because the office is currently validating whether the people who registered to vote are legitimate.

The office spent about $15,000 on voter registration efforts, including about $12,000 on the concert for booking venues and other purposes, Contreras said. Because the External Vice President’s office and the Cultural Affairs Commission co-hosted the event, the two offices split the roughly $28,000 cost, Contreras said.

The money came from his office’s programming fund, Contreras said. About $23,000 is provided by the fund, which Contreras said has been underutilized in the past.

In 2008, the External Vice President’s office registered about 8,000 UCLA students to vote. That year, voter turnout for youth was at its highest since 1972. In 2012, the office registered more than 2,500 students.

Though the office advertised its BruinsVote! campaign through fliers and social media, some students said they wished the office had reached out to more students about its events.

“The midterm election is overlooked, but it is just as important (as a presidential election),” said Karen Truong, a fourth-year computer science and engineering student who attended the concert on Friday.

Truong said she didn’t hear much about other events hosted by the office, but she heard about the BruinsVote! concert through Facebook. She added that she had already registered online by the time of the event.

The External Vice President’s office hosted events throughout last week, which was deemed voter registration week. Though some events, such as “The Word on Wednesday,” had larger numbers of attendees, many events had small audiences. Contreras said he estimates that 400 to 500 people registered to vote last week and that his office is seeing more students registering to vote online.

On Thursday, about 40 people attended a debate hosted by the office between three campus political groups. The Covel Grand Horizon room, where the debate was hosted, can seat up to 600 people.

At Friday’s concert, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen attended to talk about the importance of youth voting.

“How many of you would let your grandmother choose your music?” Bowen asked at the event. “If you want to play, vote.”

Although the last day to register to vote has passed, Contreras said he plans to continue registering voters throughout the school year.