By James Buckser
Boston University News Service
More than 40 million members of Generation Z will be eligible to vote this year, according to the Tufts Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Organizations across Worcester are working to get out the youth vote on college campuses.
Ann Lisi, vice president of the League of Women Voters Worcester area, said the organization was “extremely keen” on young people seeing it as their role to vote.
“Good habits start young,” Lisi said. “The sooner you can make it your habit, research has shown that the longer it will stick as a habit.”
Lisi said the league had been involved in a number of campus voter registration drives including one at Quinsigamond Community College.
Sean Harris, director of community engagement at QCC, said the school’s “QCC Votes” campaign started when the semester began and will run through October.
As part of this campaign, Harris said, there are signs, televisions and staff and faculty throughout the school displaying or carrying QR codes that allow people to register to vote.
Students are noticing. Harris said that while the QR code didn’t have the capacity to tell how many people had registered through the school, he said on the program’s kickoff day they registered over 100 people between QCC’s main and downtown campuses.
“Before we even did our voter register kickoff, I had already registered 15 students myself,” Harris said. “Constantly having those conversations about it saying, ‘Even if you just sign up, register to start to unveil the process, that’s what we need you to do.’”
Harris said QCC held its kickoff event Sept. 17, National Voter Registration Day. The event included volunteers from the ACLU of Massachusetts, Third Act Massachusetts and the League of Women Voters.
“QCC did a tremendous job.” Lisi said. “We registered people to vote. It was really exciting.”
QCC isn’t the only school getting involved in registration efforts. Carla Orellana, associate director for community engagement and volunteering at Clark University, said people from all over Clark were getting involved in registration efforts through a Civic Engagement Committee made up of faculty and staff.
“I’m really grateful that everyone has come together to kind of lead this initiative,” Orellana said. “I think we all realize how important it is to talk about civic engagement, especially to our students and to our first-year students, and so we’re really excited to engage in this work.”
Orellana said her office hosts weekly voter registration hours and has voter information for students available to register to vote online or check their status. They also have physical voter registration applications.
“I personally take them to City Hall,” Orellana said.
Orellana said a concern among students was whether they should vote in their home states or in Worcester. She said it depends on where they want to vote in local elections.
“I think it’s really important for students to get registered to have a say and be involved in community, whether that’s here or again, back at home.” Orellana said.
Orellana said that “civic engagement is super important,” and that Clark students have been very engaged.
“Our saying here is, ‘Challenge convention, change the world,’” Orellana said. “I think a way of doing that is through voting.”
This story originally appeared in Telegram & Gazette.
