Quinnipiac University’s voter education committee aims to educate students about the election and the voting process involved.
The voter education group is a bi-partisan group comprised of various Quinnipiac organizations and faculty, such as the Student Government Association, Quinnipiac’s Political Science Student Association, Quinnipiac University Democrats, College Republicans, Public Safety Department, Chief Experience Officer Tom Ellett and other Quinnipiac organizations and administration representatives, according to Ellett.
“We meet every other week during the course of the end of summer through the election and then every once a month after that,” Ellett said.
The voter education committee is set on doing what its name suggests, to educate the students.
“As an educational institution we need to be bi-partisan because we get funding from the federal government,” Ellett said. “We can’t say this is the candidate you have to vote for. We don’t talk about our own feelings about the issues, we talk about the issues.”
The committee participated in the organization of the presidential debate watch party hosted by the QPSSA.
“We have these groups that do programs, part of which we ask them to do and part of which they would’ve done anyways,” Ellett said. “But they just partner with us under the rubric of the voter education committee.”
And according to Ellett this was far from the last event before November.
“The Critical Conversation series is bringing in folks from the liberal and the conservative medias and talking about the election,” Ellett said, though the exact date for that is currently not certain.
There is also a themed “Talks on the Rocks” event planned later in the semester.
“We (also) asked the (Quinnipiac University Democrats) and (College Republicans) to do a session conjointly to bring in the two different perspectives on the issues.”
The university library provides links on their website that can bring students to their state’s registration websites.
“You can as a college student register your permanent address here, should you want to,” Ellett said. “There’s some benefits for students to do that, and there’s probably some political reasons why people would or would not, which I’m not gonna get involved in.”
This group is part of the national organization, All In.
The All In Campus Democracy Challenge is a national awards program. “By recognizing colleges and universities for their commitment to increasing student voting rates, All In encourages higher education institutions to help students form the habits of active and informed citizenship, make democratic participation a core value on campus and cultivate generations of engaged citizens who are essential to a healthy democracy,” according to the organizations website.
“We have to turn in our plan to them on how we get students more involved and start the process of registering and teaching them the issues, educating them on the issues and getting them to actually vote,” Ellett said.
The All In Program recognize campuses for joining the challenge and “making a commitment to increasing student voting rates.”
It recently awarded Quinnipiac with the Bronze election seal, which shows 20-29% voter participation.
Quinnipiac is only one amongst the 14 universities involved in Connecticut, alongside Fairfield University, University of Connecticut, Trinity College, Wesleyan University and Yale University.
The committee also plans to provide a shuttle bus to Hamden on election day for students who are able to vote locally.
“I think (the committee) is bringing in the consciousness of how important it is in a democracy that people actually help decide who will be the best leader,” Ellett said. “Understanding your own beliefs and where do you gravitate towards … we want you to find out what’s right for you and then do your civic responsibility and vote.”
