The state legislature finally is doing something good for students.
Yesterday morning, a bill to expand students’ access to voting passed unanimously out of committee. Under this bill, university IDs would have to follow state voter ID requirements.
Currently, you can’t use your student ID to vote because there is no signature on it. But, Rep. Gaines, D-LaPlace, and advocates from Geaux Vote LSU and Student Government are seeking to change that.
“Students already have IDs,” Jacques Petit, an economics and mass communication junior told The Daily Reveille. “Let’s make it easier for them to use it.”
Republican Secretary of State Tom Schedler also supports the idea because it could lead to an increase in turnout among younger voters. Schedler said 85 percent of eligible voters are registered, but only about 60 percent of young voters are.
This contributes to the abysmal election turnout among young people. According to an analysis by mass communication senior and Fulbright scholar Valencia Richardson using the secretary of state’s voting records, only around 18 percent of people aged 18 to 34 voted in the 2015 gubernatorial jungle primary. Richardson is the editor in chief of the Gumbo yearbook.
Maybe low turnout is a result of politicians not properly engaging young people in the political process. Low turnout is also probably a result of the voting barriers students face.
“Voting tends to be very time-consuming,” Richardson told Dig Baton Rouge. “It’s a lot of steps, especially if you are a college student, if you’re an out of state or even if you are an out of region student. The extra steps that it takes to even register to vote, and then to go and vote, creates a lot of barriers.”
If student IDs become an acceptable form of voter ID, maybe more students will register and turn out to vote. When more students vote, they are able to hold our elected leaders accountable for gutting LSU over the past seven years.
“There’s a reason why candidates aren’t coming to campus,” LSU System President F. King Alexander said in an interview with The Daily Reveille.
“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.”
Allowing students to use their IDs to vote could eliminate one of the barriers against participating in the electoral process, but we need to take more steps to simplify the voting process for students. We need to educate students on candidates’ positions on issues affecting them and provide transportation to and from their polling stations.
The University represents the largest college voting bloc in the state, with 20,000 students eligible to vote on campus according to Richardson. If students voted in every election, maybe legislators wouldn’t even consider cutting TOPS, maintaining low levels of need-based aid or slashing LSU’s budget.
Students have a lot at stake, especially during this time of a seemingly never-ending budget crisis. Making it easier for students to use their voice in the political process could help bring an end to this era.
Congratulations to all of the students, faculty and administrators involved in this effort to make voting more accessible for students. Hopefully this bill sails through the House and Senate in the coming weeks.
Michael Beyer is a 22-year-old political science senior from New Orleans, Louisiana.