Students on Louisiana’s college campuses — historically some of the least engaged in the voting process — may soon be able to vote using student IDs if a bill that sailed through a House panel Wednesday becomes law.
Louisiana Secretary of State Tom Schedler, who supports the measure, said 85 percent of eligible voters are registered, but only around 60 percent of young adults are.
“There’s a reason why candidates aren’t coming to campus,” LSU President F. King Alexander said in an interview. “Students don’t give money to campaigns. They can’t. They don’t have any money. And they don’t vote in large numbers. If we can change the latter we’ll get more attention from the candidates.”
Alexander suggested the reason education funding is cut perennially in the state is due in part to students’ lack of engagement with the political process, and said he’s working on getting voting precincts in the Student Union before the elections this fall.
The idea for the eligible ID originated around a year ago at the University with Student Government Senator Jacques Petit and a student organization called Geaux Vote LSU. Schedler and Rep. Randal Gaines, D-Laplace, who is carrying the bill, threw their support behind it once it became legislation. The measure received nothing but approval from the House Education Committee.
“Students already have IDs,” said Petit, an economics and political communication junior. “Let’s make it easier for them to use it.”
Students from Geaux Vote LSU also testified in support of the bill.
Currently, an ID must have a signature and photo to be an acceptable voting ID. Student IDs generally have a photo only.
“We all have seen what’s happening across the country with a down slide in [voter] participation,” said Schedler, who has been eyeing apps, iPads and student IDs to get more people voting.
Alexander estimated the cost of new LSU student IDs at around $34,000, which he said the University could find.
Rep. Beryl Amedee, R-Houma, brought up potential confusion among students at private colleges, whose IDs would still not be eligible to act as voting identification.
“You could just require any institution in the state that gets TOPS to do it,” Alexander responded.

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Javier Fernandez

Universtiy president F. King Alexander talks to engineering junior Zack Faircloth and junior child and family studies major Lindsey Landry during the inauguration for the student government President and Vice President on Tuesday, Apr. 12, 2016 inside the Memorial Tower.