As the presidential election approaches, college students across the country are getting involved with numerous organizations, jobs and volunteer agencies in hopes of influencing the electorate. One group taking up that burden and making waves on campus is 2004ward, a voter-registration organization originally created by undergraduates at Yale University.
“The idea is that, during the summer, teams of students are sent to swing votes with the intention to increase voter turnout while at the same time raising awareness for the upcoming election. Mostly we target groups who have a history of not voting or being underrepresented,” said Becca Linden ’06.
“The main purpose is mobilizing the energy of college students in areas other then their hometowns. [2004ward] wanted students to go to areas that matter. They’ve been working for two years to convince non-profit organizations that this was a good idea and receive funding,” said Shayla Silver-Balbus ’06, 2004ward the coordinator at Wesleyan. “I first knew about it from a bulletin e-mail sent through endlessacronym. I was interested in doing voter registration work and when I heard about this, I contacted them.”
The program has attracted many students from different universities, including Wesleyan. “I received an overwhelming response from Wes students, even Wes grads from three years ago who are still members of certain listservs would send me e-mails that I had to turn down,” Silver-Balbus said. “Now Columbia, Brown, Grinnell and more universities are joining the program. It’s also been used as an opportunity to recruit from all over the country.”
2004ward has successfully put together a coalition including national non-profit organizations USAction and the League of Conservation Voters, who provide pay for students doing work for 2004ward.
“They provide stipends for students up to $1,500 for non-work study students and $2,500 for those on work study,” Silver-Balbus said.
“Each chapter provides sponsorship for students; they find you housing. Of course you still have to pay for your living costs, it’s not just a free ride,” Linden said.
This summer, sixty students from Wes who are broken up into small groups will be on their way to swing states across the country.
“We’ll have ten students going to Maine, fifteen to Washington State, 28 to New Mexico and five are headed to Florida,” Silver-Balbus said.
Before leaving for a state, students will undergo training at Yale for a day. Training will continue in the designated states.
“There are different issues and needs in each state, so this way, it’ll familiarize the students with the local area and the relevant issues there.” Silver-Balbus said.
“Door-to-door canvassing will be the main technique used to register voters. We’ll also try to organize rallies and create booths at malls and concerts to target younger voters,” Linden said.
2004ward is registered as a non-partisan group, but Linden feels that Wes students involved with 2004 have a similar political outlook.
“I really hate Bush and wanted to involve myself in the upcoming elections. The organization itself maintains a non-partisan status but I don’t know anyone involved at Wes who doesn’t see this as a way to get Bush out of office,” Linden said.
Silver-Balbus had a similar reaction.
“The first reason I wanted to do this is I want Bush out of office. I’ve been thinking about this for some time and considered doing an internship. The second reason is I want to get people to vote uncomplicated, coming door-to-door to people would assist them and hopefully get them to vote,” Silver-Balbus said. “There is no guarantee of what they will register to vote for, but we will attempt to present the issues at hand in the fairest light as possible.”
The progress of 2004ward at Wesleyan has risen over the past few months.
“Its come a long way since February. It took a while for people to commit. People were still learning, but now the movement has gained incredible momentum,” Linden said. “It’s been amazing. Every week I kept adding three to four students to the listserv. Now everything is set, before a lot of things were still up in the air, some states like Oregon decided to back out and its only been a week ago that teams were finally definite,” Silver-Balbus said. “At this point there is still the issue of fundraising. We’ll try to open it up and hopefully receive funds, which we’ll then give out to students based on need.”
Silver-Balbus is enthusiastic about the summer so far.
“I hope it will be a fun and valuable experience. It’s up to us to work as effectively and sensitively as possible, to relate and find out the issues important to voters in certain areas,” Silver-Balbus said.
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