Groups court campus voters

A campuswide coalition of student groups will hold a municipal elections forum this week to encourage more students to cast their vote in November.

The forum, which will be held at 7 p.m. Wednesday on the first floor of Greenlaw Hall, will allow students to register to vote and learn about election issues.

Students are invited to attend for any period of time and pick up information on elections issues.

The forum will consist of a candidate meet-and-greet and brief remarks on the importance of municipal elections in students' lives by Jonathan Howes, former Chapel Hill mayor, and Ryan Tuck, editor of The Daily Tar Heel.

Seventeen of the 18 candidates in the Chapel Hill and Carrboro races are scheduled to attend.

Student leaders met Friday to finalize plans for the forum.

"As this campus' newspaper - and with these different groups on campus - (we) have to really publicize how to vote," Tuck said. "Or else people won't know and they won't go."

The Daily Tar Heel is organizing the forum with co-sponsors in more than a half-dozen campus groups - the UNC College Republicans, the Young Democrats, the Graduate and Professional Student Federation, the Interfraternity Council, the Black Student Movement and Student Government.

The groups planning the forum were invited to participate to represent a cross-section of the campus community.

Each group brought to the table a different aspect of the role town politics plays in students' lives.

Mike Brady, president of the GPSF, said that because most graduate students live off-campus in Chapel Hill or Carrboro, they are very invested in the town's politics.

The key to getting them involved is making the elections process more accessible, Brady said.

"First and foremost you have to get them registered and then get them to the polls."

Brandon Hodges, BSM president, highlighted the opportunity that elections provide to students who want to effect change in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

"A lot of people have problems that they have seen," Hodges said. "This is how you fix that problem."

Tuck emphasized that the newspaper's involvement in the forum will not compromise the DTH's integrity or contribute to coverage bias.

"I don't have to worry about bias creeping into my coverage," he said. "I'm not generating the content, so I feel that any bias is pushed to the side."

He said he was compelled to organize the forum because of consistently low student turnout.

During the 2003 municipal election only 329 students aged 18 to 22 turned out at the polls - just 10 percent of the registered voters in that demographic.

"It embarrassed me as a fellow student," Tuck said. "It embarrassed me as politics enthusiast. It embarrassed me as a Chapel Hill citizen."

He said he hopes the forum will be something that future DTH editors and student leaders will continue to organize in election years.

"The Daily Tar Heel will be a strong advocate for issues that people should care about," Tuck said.

 

Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.