Geaux Vote, a child-organization of the Andrew Goodman Foundation’s Vote Everywhere program, is pushing for students to register to vote as the midterm elections are quickly approaching.
“Our focus is getting students excited about voting,” said Zoe Williamson, president of Geaux Vote. “We do that by making voting seem fun and making students realize the importance and weight of their vote.”
Williamson, a mass communication senior, had been working on combating fake news with Manship School of Mass Communication professor Len Apcar when she stumbled upon a Geaux Vote meeting and became interested after getting the chance to voice her opinions.
Williamson became the third member of the student organization and became president after one member graduated and the other member, mass communication senior Rachel Campbell, became the Student Government vice president. Geaux Vote has helped register over 1,500 voters since July.
“One of our big missions is not making people do any extra work to come to us,” Williamson said. “We do that by registering people in free speech plaza, [and] we’ll have buttons, stickers and Koozies. We’ve registered people in bars like Fred’s. We don’t want registering to vote to be hard, but sometimes it can be, especially for college students. We have figured out ways to make it as easy as possible for LSU students.”
Geaux Vote has made a lot of progress in the push to make student voter registration simpler. SG helped fund and launch a website with a direct registration link.
Geaux Vote has had numerous events in the past and have many more planned, especially leading up to the midterm elections on Nov. 6. The organization’s big event on National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 25, which featured free t-shirts, pizza and raffles, led to nearly 500 students registering to vote. They showed up in Free Speech Plaza, Patrick F. Taylor Hall and Middleton Library.
“We want to get them where they are,” Williamson said. “But registering isn’t enough. It actually isn’t anything unless you vote.”
Williamson encourages students to make their voices heard.
“I see a lot of students getting discouraged because in states that normally go a certain party, people of that party don’t think that they need to vote because it’s going to go that way anyway, while people of the opposite party don’t vote because they believe there’s no hope,” Williamson said.
“I see that, and I understand that. Maybe the national elections aren’t going to change that much if you vote, but what will change is the local elections. The reason we have TOPS right now is because state representatives were forced by their constituents to vote in favor of TOPS. They realized how important it was for students to have that scholarship.”
Geaux Vote still has more planned beyond the midterm elections next month.
The University is currently split into two voting precincts based on which side of Highland Road students live on. They are working to make the University fit into a single precinct after the 2020 consensus.