City College Student Volunteers Rush to Register Campus Voters

As the state deadline looms, CCNY volunteers push students to register to vote.

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by Caroline Kimeu

“If you are not registered to vote, come down here and register!” shouted a student from behind a voter registration desk at the Rotunda, one of the busier spots on the City College of New York campus. Some students stopped by the desk, but others scurried along avoiding eye contact and a few mouthed “No,” they hadn’t registered.

It was the day before the Oct. 12 deadline for registration in New York State. Morgan Brooks, 21, a junior biochemistry major, walked up and down the hall, clipboard in hand, asking passing students if they had registered.

With the Nov. 6 midterm election looming and control of the Senate and the House, plus the state legislature, hanging in the balance, City College students* have been working with the New York Public Interest Research Group to register their peers.

It hoped to register 1000 students by the deadline, said Alfonzo DiRocco, a sophomore civil engineering major. It exceeded that goal: by tomorrow’s deadline, NYPIRG’s City College chapter will have registered more than 1,200 new voters, said NYPIRG.

“In the fall, voter registration is always important,” said Clark Adomaitis of the City College chapter of NYPIRG, which remains non-partisan. “Last year, we registered 1500 people on campus to vote, and that entailed us standing out in the middle of campus in the high traffic areas, physically calling out people, getting in front of people and handing them voter registration forms.”

This year, DiRocco said, the chapter started tabling earlier than usual, with about 10 sessions within the first two weeks of the school year. “This year, CCNY NYPIRG chapter is really being aggressive about getting people to register,” said DiRocco, 19. “It’s the first time that millennials outnumber baby boomers and we can be the force that drives this country.”

L’Sean Romany, a freshman, would also like to see a younger voter demographic. “It’s kind of crazy that people over 65 get to vote and it’s like, they are voting now for our future and they’re probably not going to be alive by then,” said Romany, 18. “I should at least have a say in who’s going to be controlling the government, and I just turned 18 so I can finally do that.”

But the numbers show that not everyone is as enthusiastic. In 2014, only 12 percent of eligible 18- to 21-year-old college students voted, according to a National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement report. Even in 2016, a presidential election year, fewer than half of college undergraduates voted, the report showed.

“A lot of students really don’t necessarily know about the elections coming up so it’s very important that we come in and remind them of important dates,” said Emily Skydel, a NYPIRG staff member.

Alhassane Camara, a senior majoring in advertising and public relations, has been working to help register students. NYPIRG uses the CUNY-D form, specifying that the new voter is a CUNY student, a strategy to start building a student voting bloc.

“The CUNY-D form will encourage politicians to make CUNY free and affordable for all students,” said Camara, 22. “A lot of students drop out because they don’t have the funding to go to school.”

Rehman Arshad, a computer science major, was already registered but decided to re-register as a CUNY student. Arshad, 20, also hopes that stronger student representation will lead to free public colleges one day. “It’s just weird to me,” he said. “Elementary is completely free, junior high is completely free, high school is completely free … but the moment you have to walk into college, where you choose a major which can decide your entire future and the stakes are even higher, it’s like the government completely just lets you loose.”

Camara said that while many students remain unaware of the upcoming elections, others are disengaged, possibly because of the 2016 election.

For example, Jada Macharie, an environmental systems science major, said she only registered because a NYPIRG volunteer shoved a registration form in her face. She has no plans to vote. “I don’t really feel like voting does anything because I don’t really have that much power,” Macharie said. “Even though I have a voice, quote unquote, it doesn’t really do anything because Donald Trump wouldn’t be president right now.”

But Victor Anosike, a biomedical science major, said that since the 2016 election, people have become far less complacent. He worried, however, that there has been little focus on state and local government. “People don’t realize that the voting that happens locally is actually what contributes to what ends up going all the way to the top,” said Anosike, 19.

Even with such varying levels of interest, student volunteers will continue to register their fellow students and provide information about polling sites.

“This is all to encourage them to know where they can go vote, when the day is, and to remind them that this is the time to do it,” said Alyssa Clark, a NYPIRG staffer. “If you are registered, go out and vote.”

(Photos by Caroline Kimeu)

*CORRECTION: The article originally said the CCNY student government was involved in the NYPIRG registration campaign; it was not.

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