Several campus organizations are partaking in initiatives to raise awareness and promote civic engagement ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
Various organizations are hosting voter registration drives to ensure that as many eligible students and faculty members are registered, and they have a plan to vote on election day.
Nonpartisan organization Geaux Vote has already hosted voter registration events on campus. For National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 20, students from Geaux Vote set up in Free Speech Alley to register potential voters as they passed by.
From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., members of Geaux Vote assisted passersby with questions or difficulties they had while navigating the registration process.
Mass communication senior Bridget Cotten, president of Geaux Vote, said that as the election comes closer, Geaux Vote plans to register more voters and notify voters of important election deadlines using their social media platforms.
She said that the organization is emphasizing voter registration deadlines and election information to out-of-state students who might not have easily accessible information about their state’s elections, specifically reminding them to return absentee and mail-in ballots. Louisiana residents are also notified of the Oct. 11 deadline for in-person registration, and the Oct. 18 deadline for online registration.
“If they are interested in registering to vote, we help them through the process,” Cotten said. “A lot of people can get swept up in it and just forget that you’ve got to vote.”
International trade and finance junior Cooper Ferguson, president of College Democrats of LSU, said that College Democrats is “hyper-fixated on the midterms.”
College Democrats is hosting events around campus to promote civic engagement and inform student-voters about measures and candidates on the ballot. The organization also has plans for a forum with U.S. Senate candidate Gary Chambers.
In addition to forums, College Democrats hosted question and answer sessions with candidates, voter registration drives and community involvement projects to inform students on campus about the election.
“It’s a pretty nonpartisan but inherently democratic value of serving each other and kind of taking a role in the community,” Ferguson said.
Two conservative student organizations, College Republicans of LSU and Turning Point LSU, didn’t provide comment on their plans ahead of the midterm elections.
Another student organization on campus, Feminists in Action, is holding events to notify group members of important ballot measures and candidates whose values align with the group, such as pro-choice measures and politicians advocating for accessible reproductive health options.
On Sept. 8, Feminists in Action collaborated with Geaux Vote to hold a civic engagement discussion about the upcoming election. The discussion again provided students with resources on how to register to vote and highlighted the various deadlines they need to be aware of, with out-of-state students prioritized.
Religious studies and history junior Lauren Pete, Feminists in Action’s outreach director, said that since a majority of Feminists in Action members are out-of-state students, it was important for them to be made aware of deadlines for mail-in ballots since they won’t able to vote in person.
“As a nonpartisan organization, we can’t endorse particular candidates by their party,” Pete said. “What we can do is point out to our members that ‘This is a political candidate who is pro-choice,’ or ‘These are some things to look out for.’”
Across campus, the response to these efforts has been overtly positive. Organization officials said that students are receptive to engagement efforts.
“The response has been pretty overwhelmingly positive,” Ferguson said. “If you really break down what we’re doing, we’re advocating for student voices on campus and we’re advocating for students in the community.”
