Tomorrow and Thursday, students will have a chance to prove the critics of young people’s voting habits wrong.
Satellite voting stations will be in place from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Maucker Union, where students will be able to register to vote, change their registration and vote for the general election officially scheduled for Nov. 7.
Satellite voting is an attempt to make voting more convenient for students.
“The reason that it seems that politicians don’t care about young voters is that older people are three times as likely to vote as younger people,” Andy Ridgeway, campus organizer for the New Voters Project, said.
“We are working to change that by increasing young voter turnout. We are working at campuses across the United States.”
Ridgeway has been working with the Northern Iowa Student Government to register students and encourage them to vote.
Kyle Jensson, Black Hawk county elections manager, stated that the satellite stations were created to complement student schedules. Unlike so many students, Jensson doesn’t wait around.
“We make sure to get them organized and operating before the last day to register because it doesn’t make sense to do it if the deadline for registration has passed,” she said.
Students who are registered to vote somewhere besides Black Hawk county but would like to vote here can opt to change their registration.
“They are obligated to report the address where they were registered,” Jensson said. “It’s a key to good government to make sure people are only registered at one address.“
The satellite voting process works much like regular voting.
“It’s a pretty simple and painless process, Jensson said. “They will check in and sign an affidavit that they are only voting once. Then they will be given a ballot based on where they live.
“The ballot will be signed and sealed then delivered to the courthouse. They will be opened and counted on election day, “ she explained.
The county authorities have been running satellite voting on the UNI campus for about 10 years.
“Organizations can petition throughout the state can petition their country auditors to get stations set up,” said Jensson. “We were
planning on doing it anyway, but groups on campus have done petitions.”
According to Jensson, only one petition was filed by the deadline and the location listed was unable to host the event.
One group that worked with petitions for satellite voting is the UNI College Republicans.
“We have participated in advocating satellite voting by assisting the Republican Party of Iowa in getting petitions signed in order to establish satellite voting locations,” said Heather Oberg, chair of the College Republicans. “We are also advocating absentee ballot voting by running tables in the Union.”
Gina Nichols, president Northern Iowa Democrats, also petitioned for the satellite voting option.
“Early voting is always a good option, it gets it out of the way and allows people to volunteer on election day.”
Students who do not use the satellite voting stations can register to vote using an absentee ballot through the Republican and Democrat groups or the New Voter’s Project.
Both the College Republicans and the New Voters Project have tables set up in the Union this week.
Students who are registered in Black Hawk County can consult their voter registration card for their polling place to vote on November 7.
The many voting options available to students are all designed to bring as many younger voters to the polls as possible, and to help college students become actively involved in the democratic process.
