Log In


Reset Password
News Education Local News Nation & World New Mexico

Dems focus on fledgling Skyhawk voters

Midterm dilemma: How do you get them to the polls?
Lynne Murison, working with the Colorado Democratic Party to register voters, tries to get the attention of a passing student in the Fort Lewis College Student Union on Tuesday.

Along with women and Latinos, college students are vital to Democrats’ chances in November.

But getting them to vote isn’t easy.

On Tuesday, Becca Conrad with the Colorado Democratic Party was sitting at a booth in the Student Union of Fort Lewis College, urging passers-by – who often appeared immersed in iPhones, books and conversation – to register to vote.

“I like encouraging students to participate, regardless of which way they go,” she said.

But the work isn’t without its challenges. She said she felt like she’d “failed today. I only got seven people to register,” she said. Most days, she gets 10 or 12.

The problem of turning out students to vote is more acute in off-year elections, when new voters can find it difficult to relate to politics, without a presidential race to follow.

Tiffany Parker, La Plata County clerk and recorder, said that thanks to Sen. Mark Udall’s campaign and New Era, an organization dedicated to registering young voters, “we have actually been getting many, many registrations from the college because they have so many drives up there.”

She said there are already 393 voters registered at FLC’s address, 1000 Rim Drive.

Before this year’s mail-in ballot election, FLC’s old precinct, Precinct 30, saw great turnout in 2010, with 72 percent of its 1,364 registered voters casting ballots.

But registration benefited from the energy surrounding President Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012, when 60 percent of the precinct’s 2,851 voters turned out.

One problem is that most FLC students didn’t grow up in La Plata County, and aren’t versed in local or even statewide politics. For freshmen particularly, November’s election comes after two months of overwhelming change, in which students’ schedules are so busy – classes, making friends, finding bathrooms – that many struggle to buy a bath mat in first semester, let alone get up to date on the sheriff’s race.

On Tuesday in the Student Union, Conrad said she’d tried to convince one young man to register the previous day, but he said, “local elections just don’t affect me.”

She pointed out that the Colorado House of Representatives voted on the Native American tuition waiver just last year.

“He was here on the waiver. But he couldn’t see it – that voting in off-year elections is important.”

Kristin Lynch, spokeswoman for the Udall campaign, acknowledged obstacles exist to getting out the student vote.

“But I think the 2010 race shows that they’re surmountable,” she said.

She said the Udall campaign’s strategy is to “engage students by hitting on the issues that are important to them,” like women’s reproductive rights, clean energy and gay rights.

“A lot of college students don’t think the NSA (National Security Administration) should be spying on them, and Mark has been key in reining that in,” she said.

Lynch said the Udall campaign is relying on both campaign fellows – who work on campus – and sophisticated digital advertising to reach out to students.

“They might not be consuming traditional sources of media. They’re online, on Twitter, on Facebook, Hulu, Buzzfeed. That’s why our digital team is a huge part of our operations. We’re not in a day and age where you can just run a 30-second broadcast commercial,” she said.

Freshmen Catie Welch, from Washington state, and Sarah Vance, also a freshman who grew up in Colorado, hadn’t yet registered to vote.

“I haven’t done it yet,” said Welch, who doesn’t know if she wants to register here or back home, in Washington.

Vance said though she’s from Colorado, with all the pressures of adjusting to student life – going to classes, making new friends, she hadn’t “really thought about it yet.”

Both freshmen said they were wary of voting because they didn’t feel they knew enough about the candidates.

Like many older adults whose busy lives saddle them with feelings of civic inadequacy, Welch said her unfamiliarity with the races left her “feeling guilty.”

Hayden Collard, a senior, said he was psyched to vote, and especially looked forward to casting a ballot for Udall.

Though he hails from Dallas, Collard has been registered to vote in Durango since his sophomore year.

He said most of his fellow students were progressive, too. When it comes to voting, 50 percent are eager and register right away, he said. “The other 50 percent take some hassling. That’s the role I play.”

cmcallister@durangoherald.com



Reader Comments