Tufts University study finds young Louisiana voters will play an important role in the upcoming U.S. Senate election.
Louisiana’s young voters hold power in the upcoming U.S. Senate election, according to a report released by Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.
Historically, Louisiana has a higher young voter turnout than the national average of 24 percent as stated in the report.
Both voter turnout rate and voter registration for midterm elections have been on the rise since 2006, according to Tufts’ findings.
Despite this, a new Student Government initiative hopes to solve the overarching problem by registering more student voters and encouraging participation in the election.
“Wherever we have a Student Government table, we want to set up a voter registration table right next to it so that when people think, ‘Oh, I need to register,’ they say, ‘Oh, I can do that with Student Government,’” said Tyler Loga, mass communication senior and speaker of the Student Senate.
Finance junior Andrew Mahtook conceived the idea at a meeting of Southeastern Conference schools, where he learned that other schools encouraged voter registration. 
Mahtook contacted the Director of Voter Outreach at the Secretary of State’s office. 
Loga said the office was eager to have SG host a drive because of its impartiality and a voter registration drive’s easy nature.
“It’s all online,” Loga said. “It’s a sheet you download. It says all the rules, all the jargon of what you can and        can’t do.”
Neither Loga nor Mahtook want to stop with just one voter registration booth, and Loga said he looks forward to seeing this campaign grow. 
SG hosted a voter-registration booth at the Student Involvement Fair on Wednesday. 
Loga said SG is planning to offer more registration booths during finals week and at large-scale University events, like the Chancellor’s Late Night Breakfast.
Loga also said he hopes to have a permanent station in the SG office where students can pick up free Blue Books and register to vote.
SG’s voter registration campaign will have no political affiliation.
“We want to stay bipartisan, and we don’t want anything to distract from the fact that we want people to register because people should vote, not because a candidate wants you to vote for them,” Loga said.
Although SG is trying to register voters, it cannot force students to go to the voting polls on Election Day.
In the 2010 midterm election, 60.3 percent of young people in Louisiana were registered to vote, but only 26.1 percent voted in the                 election.
“Politics aren’t sexy,” Loga said. 
He said voting is not as important to young people as it is to older generations.
“The older generation looks at it as a duty,” Loga said. “And I think it’s something our generation has missed out on, but if you look at the stats for Louisiana, we’re one of the states that’s doing                                                 better.”
Mass communication senior Ariana Carter is a registered voter and participated in the 2012 presidential election, but said she does not plan to vote in the upcoming U.S. Senate election.
Undecided freshman Stacey Cambre is a registered voter who has voted in an election, and she said she is unsure of her participation in the upcoming U.S. Senate election.