News-Letter

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This is the first in a series of articles highlighting elections taking place this November.

Hoping to increase the student voter turnout in the November presidential election, the Hopkins chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (JHU-ACLU) registered over 100 students in a campus-wide voter registration drive Sunday evening.

The drive, co-sponsored by the Black Student Union, College Democrats, Coalition of Hopkins Activists for Israel and Alpha Kappa Psi, was considered a success by JHU-ACLU.

"A college campus is the prime location to get people to register to vote," said Atin Agarwa, the Treasurer of JHU-ACLU, "and the 18-24 year-old age group needs to make a difference."

Only 42 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted in the 2000 presidential election.

As a Canadian citizen, event organizer Agarwal can't vote, but he wanted to make sure that all other Hopkins students have the opportunity to do so. "It's crucial on college campuses to make it accessible for students to register," Agarwal said.

If students wish to vote in their home state, they must separately file for an absentee ballot, a process which Agarwal said can be confusing. However, at the registration tables the ACLU offered a sign-up sheet for notification by e-mail to ensure that students are provided with information on how to obtain an absentee ballot. A few students opted to register as residents of Maryland, expressing interest in supporting local candidates.

Freshman Sam Brown said that he recently turned 18, and exercising his right to vote offers him a newfound source of independence. "It's an avenue for getting my voice out about the direction I think the country should take. And as an 18-year-old, I'm kind of scared about the possibility of the draft."

He also cited current foreign policy, the state of the economy and tax policy as issues that persuaded him to register.

Senior Vandna Jerath's reasons for registering were similar.

"I want to change the direction that America is heading in for the next four years," she said.

Junior Emilie Adams, the Campus JHU-ACLU's Vice President of Institutional Relations, explained that the hope of this campus-wide, bipartisan voting drive was to encourage an activist sentiment as the vehicle to help students participate in what she believes is the most decisive election of our time.

Junior JHU-ACLU member Michael Kelly-Sell echoed Adams.

"This is an important election," Kelly-Sell said, "and college kids usually don't vote."

As a bipartisan organization that leans towards the left and has expressed discontent with the current presidential administration, many of the members were vocal with their personal political opinions.

Nonetheless, many stressed that the voter registration drive was a bipartisan attempt at stirring the campus's overall political awareness.

"In the ACLU, the issues shift from year to year," Adams said.

He added, "But the fundamental tenet is to promote defense of civil liberties, both here on campus and off. But mostly we're always here to foster discussion of the issues."

Adams said that she was once called unpatriotic for speaking her mind through JHU-ACLU.

The incident, Adams said, only strengthened her conviction that "it's always patriotic to speak your mind politically, no matter what side you're on."

Voting, she said, is one of the most important ways to have one's political voice heard.

"Hosting the registration drive wasn't a lot of work," Agarwal said.

He also noted that there are plans to hold repeats of the event in the next several weeks.

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