Of the millions of Americans who find themselves unable to vote on Nov. 6, four million of them are young people who will be 18 by November, many are students.
Blacksburg Mayor Leslie Hager-Smith and former mayor Ron Rordam talk to Virginia Tech students as part of the town’s Mayors for Our Lives pledge to support student registration on National Voter Registration Day, Tuesday.
On Tuesday, National Voter Registration Day, Blacksburg Mayor Leslie Hager-Smith and former mayor Ron Rordam worked with a number of Virginia Tech student members of NextGen Virginia, and staffed the Voter Registration table on the promenade at Squires Student Center to register young adults to vote.
Hager-Smith signed on to the non-partisan group March for Our Lives’ Mayors for Our Lives pledge to support a day of voter registration.
Hundreds of mayors throughout the country participated in their towns and cities, and Hager-Smith was one of three Virginia mayors taking the pledge.
“MCPS high schools already offer voter registration as part of their mandatory US government classes,” Hager-Smith wrote in an email. So, in order to fulfill the pledge, we only had to put some effort into ensuring that voter registration [was] available on the VT campus.”
This is the sixth National Voter Registration Day, and the mayors stood with a gauntlet of young people at the NextGen table with its maroon and orange tie-dye ‘VT Votes” banner, boxes of oatmeal cookies, and buttons and Frisbees as students bustled past.
“Hey, how’s it going! Are you registered to vote?” volunteers called out.
Many passers-by, pulling an ear bud from on one side and said, “What? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I’m registered,” but it’s hard to know.
“What we do is make it easier to vote. Registering can be a complex process,” Emma Ruby, the NextGen spokesperson and political science major said.”
Another student pointed out that most students not being full-time residents to the area is part of the confusion.
“A lot of people don’t know that, because they live here [in Blacksburg] for nine months of the year, they can register to vote here.” Mica Keck, 20, a junior in environmental resources management said. “Are you registered to vote? It’ll just take a minute! You can have a cookie!”
Every time someone changes their address, they need to update it. NextGen members said that many young people don’t register because they don’t know how, or they weren’t thinking about it as the deadlines passed or they didn’t update their registration if they’ve moved—a special situation for students.
“We do presentations in classes and meet them where they are,” members said.
And there was Will Looney, 18, of Craig County, a freshman in Agriculture Technology, walking by who stopped to register.
“I don’t know where I would have gone to sign up,” he said.
By lunch, when the Chipotle burritos arrived, they’d signed up 16 people, Hager-Smith and Rordam talked to a Vietnam veteran who wanted to work the polls.
By the end of the day, more than 100 people were registered, and over 800 statewide.
The general election is Tuesday, Nov. 6. Citizens must register to vote by Oct. 15 to vote in the election.
For more information visit, vote.elections.virginia.gov/VoterInformation or call (804) 864-8901 or Montgomery County’s elections office at (540) 382-5741.
