The Student Government Association is hosting a voter registration drive Tuesday, March 1, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Roaden University Center first floor lobby.
Students do not need any kind of ID to register, but they will need to provide ID when voting for the first time.
Students will fill out a form that allows them to pick the city that they consider their residence; this will be the city in which they can vote.
Elliot Mitzelfeld, SGA secretary of programming, is in charge of the drive and has high hopes that the drive will help register more students than last year.
“Last year, 39 schools were involved [in organizing a drive], and we registered 133 new voters at TTU. This was the same amount as the University of Tennessee, and they have quite a bit larger student population,” said Mitzelfeld. “Our goal for this year is to double that number by the time of the presidential election.”
In the U.S. Census Bureau’s article, “Young Adult Voting: An Analysis of Presidential Elections 1964-2012,” statistics show that the amount of 18 to 24 year olds that vote in the presidential election has decreased from 50 percent in 1964 to 38 percent in 2012.
According to Mitzelfeld, these registration drives are a part of a push from the Tennessee Secretary of State office to increase voting involvement with college-aged students. Student leaders in the state met at the Secretary of State office to discuss their overall goal of registering more voters than previous years and to plan improvements that will help these leaders accomplish this goal.
“Part of our plan is to use the hashtag ‘#GoVoteTN’ to promote voting and the registration drive,” said Mitzelfeld.
Allyson Dunn, a sophomore cellular and molecular biology major, plans on voting in the presidential election for the first time. She was not able to because of her age during the 2012 election.
“I’m going to vote because I feel like it’s my responsibility to exercise my right to vote,” said Dunn. “I think it’s important to vote in college because this sets the tone for the rest of your voting career. If you start voting now, you are more likely to continue to vote as you get older. It’s important to establish your political stance.
There will also be two other registration drives this year. A drive is scheduled to take place at the end of April. The other will be scheduled during the fall semester. SGA encourages other student organizations and groups to get involved and to volunteer at the upcoming voter registration drives.
