The power of our ballots

At Columbia, we are given four years to enjoy New York City. But with this opportunity to relish life in the never-sleeping crossroads of the world comes an imperative duty as urban citizens—a duty to become knowledgeable, invested, and empowered municipal activists.

This week, as we’re settling into school, it’s easy to forget that New York is at the height of campaign season. The bustle of the first week of classes puts local politics out of mind. But even once things have quieted down, students—who must retain familiarity with their hometown politicking, and who often have little interest in the politics of a city from which they will be gone in the blink of an eye—are frequently disenfranchised.

The need to remedy the low levels of student voting was recognized by Congress in 1998, when it mandated that all schools participating in the federal student aid program make “a good faith effort” to distribute voter registration forms. This requirement is riddled with problems—most significantly, colleges can passively satisfy their statutory obligation by simply stocking sufficient voter cards on campus. During the initial days of the 111th Congress, a bill to remedy the shortcomings of Congress’ previous actions on student voting was proposed. The Student VOTER Act, HR 1729, allows institutions of higher learning to distribute voter cards during each registration period of a student’s college career. A bipartisan piece of legislation, HR 1729 would be a huge step forward in protecting our vulnerable voting rights as students. But in this divided political climate, it wallows in congressional committee. This cause, our cause, demands our support. It is up to us to lobby and to organize. We must make our voices heard in Washington, on behalf of our generation and the generations after us. Our representatives must know that we want this bill and our voting rights.

The requirement that voter registration forms be provided each semester can alleviate many registration hiccups common to college students. A ubiquitous semiannual provision of voter cards would encourage students to update their residence information, allowing important Board of Elections mailings to reach them, and inform them about the local elections. This is essential in places like New York, where frequent reassignments of polling places are common. Undocumented residential changes affect the ability of both a student and any future resident of the student’s dorm room to register and cast ballots. They also sometimes lead to allegations of attempted voter fraud. The most crucial step in reforming any sector of our voting process is to ease the process of updating residence information.

Student voters on urban campuses like Columbia’s have a unique problem, and it is for them that HR 1729 would do the most. College is a mobile time, often marked by yearly relocations. On urban campuses, where dorms and other accommodations are part of the municipal streetscape, moving into new housing can even mean crossing electoral lines—not merely those electoral districts that divide each block, but boundaries for everything from municipal to federal office. Consider that those in campus housing vote at four different polling places: Wien Hall, Riverside Church, the Forest Chambers apartment building on 113th Street, and Columbia University Houses on Riverside Drive.

The battle for student voting is not won when a student arrives on campus and first registers to vote: Constant reminders and assistance are needed to ensure voter security and the continued enfranchisement of students. This mustn’t only take the form of governmental intervention. It is the duty of the school to make resources available, above and beyond legal mandates, to encourage student voting.

In the absence of legislative action, the school (and the student body) must engage in greater electoral education. Columbia must take steps to publicize resources for those who experience registration or poll site problems because of their dormitory addresses: All too often students are informed that dormitory addresses do not fulfill residency requirements without ease of recourse.

If we care about the democratic process, we cannot allow this bill to fail. It is ultimately a personal decision where one casts one’s vote—and this bill would make it easier for students who have made the decision to vote here.

HR 1792 has bipartisan support, but the hyper-politicized state of Washington seriously imperils its chances of moving out of committee in this 111th Congress. We must pressure our congressional representatives to pass this bill into law through unified national student advocacy. But we also cannot wait for laws to ease our way to the ballot box—we must exercise our civic duty, regardless of the difficulty of doing so.

The imperative to vote is as strong as ever, and we must show that we recognize the power of our ballots, even absent legislation (or administrative action), by “voting early [in life] and often.”

Louis Cholden-Brown is a junior in the joint General Studies and Jewish Theological Seminary program, majoring in urban studies and Jewish philosophy. He is a member of Community Board 7. Urban Ink runs alternate Thursdays.