Moriarty: Get out and vote: three words that students at the University of New Hampshire will find hard to forget after spending these last two months on campus.

As the midterm elections are approaching Tuesday, November 8, advocacy groups and organizations have been encouraging student voters in Durham to head to the polls and get their voices heard.

My name is Kaylin Moriarty, and along with fellow reporters Sarah Donovan, Victoria Fluet and Aleksandra Bedard, we spoke directly to organizations and the university about why it’s so important to encourage young voters, a demographic that is typically underrepresented at the polls, to take part in the upcoming election.

 

*Ambient indoor noise*

 

Moriarty: Table lie outside of Philbrook and Holloway commons, two of the most popular campus dining halls, where eager advocates for organizations like Organize New Hampshire, a Democratic advocacy group, are waiting outside to educate students on how to vote and encourage them to vote for their parties. Here, our very own Victoria Fluet sat down with Meghan Jackson, this year’s organizer of the organize New Hampshire campaign, to discuss what Jackson believes is the biggest reason for the lack of youth voter registration in past elections.

 

Fluet: Historically, like you mentioned, they make it hard to vote. What do you think historically have been some of the biggest things that have stopped the youth from voting? A lack of education, an infrastructure thing?

Jackson: Definitely both. A lack of education for sure just because like I said, a lot of students are unaware that they can still vote where they live. It’s called being domiciled, which pretty much means the part of where you’re living.

Like if you feel like you’re a part of that community, then you’re able to vote there. There’s also some infrastructure that can make it hard to vote. New Hampshire’s actually trying to pass, I think it’s like a House bill, I can’t remember which bill it is, but it’s pretty much one that will make it more difficult. It will, I believe, require that you have some sort of license that has a New Hampshire address. And I can double check and send that to you. But that’s something that they’re passing in New Hampshire that will be in effect.

 

Moriarty: Prioritizing voter education seems to be a consistent theme between advocacy groups in Durham. With a number of topics on the ballot this year, from gun control to climate change and to abortion, UNH’s Planned Parenthood Generation Action has been campaigning and educating students across campus and in the Durham community. Social media chair Margaret Miller sat down to discuss the specifics in an interview with me.

 

Moriarty: What is Planned Parenthood Generation Action doing to educate student’s voting about abortion on the upcoming ballot?

Miller: Great question. So, what we’re doing right now, we’re working directly with Planned Parenthood; they have a pledge to vote campaign. So basically what it is, is we ask voters who are registered in New Hampshire, we’re really focusing on New Hampshire partly because we’re obviously working with Planned Parenthood New England, but also because New Hampshire is a purple state, to get as many blue votes as we can to you know, elect politicians who have abortion at the top of their ballot, or the right to an abortion at the top of their ballot.

 But basically, what we are doing directly is we’re doing a lot of campaigns with the pledge to vote event. Basically, we’re asking all our members to reach out to their friends, their family, especially if they’re registered to vote in New Hampshire, to fill out these pledge to vote cards. What they do is near election day, they are sent back to the person who filled them out, just as a reminder to vote, but also once you sign the pledge to vote card, your name is put on a resource list. So, those resources look like your polling location, your district, executive counselor, who Planned Parenthood has endorsed. It basically just provides the voter with as many resources as possible in order to be informed and prepared come November 8.

Moriarty: Why do you think it’s so important to spread awareness about abortion on the ballot, specifically to the UNH community? So kind of going off that, I guess.

Miller: Yeah, like I said, I think specific to the UNH community, like I said a little earlier is that New Hampshire is just such an important state when it comes to elections, like as we know during the presidential election we are the first primary, so we see a lot of candidates and a lot of people trying to get out the vote in New Hampshire because it really sets the tone for what the rest of the election might look like, how it might fall out, how it might roll out and all that jazz.

I think UNH specifically, we have a lot of work to do when it comes to human rights, I think the awareness just isn’t necessarily where we want it to be. I think that goes for almost any environment, I think there’s always work that can be done in terms of elevating people’s education on what, how a right to an abortion can affect people, can affect themselves, the people around them, the people they know, everyone. And I think that’s really important here, especially we’ve seen a lot of rollouts of students promoting anti-choice, which has been, I think as a person who can get an abortion, it’s been very demoralizing just seeing people rallying behind that. But, you know, everyone has a difference of opinion. But we just want to inform people with the facts as much as we can.

 

Moriarty: We did contact UNH’s College Republicans, however, they did not respond to us when asked for a comment.

Student senate is another organization that has been encouraging student voters and educating them on the resources that they have here on campus and in the Durham community. On election day, they are planning to host an event where students can come and ask questions about voting, grab a snack, and hop on a shuttle over to the polls. Here we have reporter Sarah Donovan speaking with Aashaya Rajbhandari, VP of community development chair for Student Senate.

 

Rajbhandari: We’re pretty passionate about voting and getting students to exercise their right to vote. I don’t really care what you’re voting for, who you’re voting for just as long as you’re going out there and doing it because it’s a right that we have and a privilege to be able to, so I just think every student should

 

Moriarty: Sarah also spoke with Student Body president and vice president Emily Dennison and Dina Rathke.

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Donovan: If you were to tell students one thing about voting, about the election, what would it be?

Dennison: Your vote matters, and you should definitely go out and vote. I think a lot of people have this misconception that it’s one vote and it doesn’t really matter if I do or don’t, but every vote matters, and that’s why I’m voting on Tuesday