Introduced by Georgia Tech Assistant Basketball Coach Eric Reveno, the measure aims to turn “a day off from athletics” into “a day on for civic engagement.” Last year, the Division I council passed a piece of legislation to prohibit teams from engaging in “countable athletic related activities” such as games, practices, or required conditioning sessions on Election Day each year. 2 news story from Princeton’s Office of Communications.Īcross Division I colleges, the All Vote, No Play initiative is yet another program aimed at increasing voter turnout among students. “A lot of people think that national, and especially presidential, elections are the only ones that matter, and we’re trying to remind people that state and local elections have an equal, or greater, impact on their day-to-day lives,” Princeton fourth-year Joe Shipley said in a Nov. Princeton University’s Vote100 campaign, launched in 2015, aims to get 100 percent of eligible undergraduates to vote either in Princeton or at home and maintains a goal not to have any “off-years.” In light of the widespread apathy toward local elections, initiatives have cropped up to encourage more college students to vote. For example, in my hometown election this year, one of the town council members achieved re-election by a margin of just three votes. While one ballot may seem inconsequential, local elections are arguably where your vote matters most. If you choose not to vote at all, I implore you to reconsider the impact that your voice can have. If you choose to vote at home instead of here, that is a perfectly fine choice. Still, I made a conscious choice to put my vote where I felt it was needed the most, and I did my civic duty. Instead, I chose to submit an absentee ballot to my hometown of Amenia, NY to help protect our town council against a slate of candidates backed by a wealthy housing development looking to circumvent taxation and zoning laws. I, admittedly, did not vote in Oberlin this year. In every other year except 2011, it has been less than half. Since 2010, in every presidential or midterm election year except 2014, the ratio of votes to registered voters, or turnout rate, in both precincts 7 and 8 has been more than half the turnout of the entire city. While every precinct in our town tends to have higher turnout for presidential and midterm elections, the effect is the most drastic in our precincts. Oberlin students consistently fail to vote in local elections. This year, while an outlier, is just the most extreme data point in a consistent and concerning pattern. Still, our community’s failure to show up cannot just be chalked up to circumstances beyond our control. COVID-19 has made it difficult for some of those who are registered to make it to the polls, as evidenced by the lowest rates since at least 2010 in every Oberlin precinct. The College also always has lower-than-City-average turnout, due in part to alumni who remain registered after graduating and moving away.
#Oberlin academic calendar 2010 2011 update#
Given one must update their registration each time they change addresses, and virtually every college student changes addresses each academic year, this likely made it impossible for many students to vote. 29, when only first-years were moving in. 4, which was the first day of classes, and voter registration tables were set up on Sept. The last day to register to vote was Oct. It is understandable that this year would have lower turnout rates than normal. Those numbers are astoundingly low by any measure, but for an institution with a student body that fancies itself to be politically-minded, fighting against the injustices of our world, they are particularly shameful. That amounts to 45 ballots from precinct 7 and 26 from precinct 8. For the first time since 2011, Oberlin precincts 7 and 8, which encompass the vast majority of the College’s student housing, saw voter turnout rates in the single digits - 2.92 percent and 1.56 percent to be exact. “Where Was Voter Turnout Lowest? Oberlin College,” reads a Chronicle-Telegram headline from Friday, Nov.
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