Feb. 4, 2004

Capturing the Vote

“GW Votes” Looks to Land 100 Percent Student Voter Registration

By Thomas Kohout

One hundred percent, the whole enchilada. When it comes to registering student voters on the campus of The George Washington University, anything less is second best. That means second fiddle to Student Association Vice President Edward Buckley and Assistant Vice President for Government Affairs Bernard Demczuk who are heading up the largest voter registration drive in campus history — GW Votes.

The registration drive that kicked off last fall at the Foggy Bottom Block Party has but one mission — registering every GW student — either to vote here in Washington, DC, or in their home state. Democrat, Republican or Independent, it doesn’t matter. The only thing GW Votes is after is civic participation, and to Buckley and Demczuk that starts with voting.

Buckley and Demczuk have been working closely on this project since late last spring, after Demczuk turned to the Student Association (SA) to try and boost student civic participation. It was during those remarks that Demczuk hit upon the 100 percent registration goal.

“It just clicked, 100 percent, why not” recalled Demczuk, dismissing the idea that just because it hasn’t been accomplished before that it can’t happen at GW.
From there Buckley and SA President Kristopher Hart sat down to develop a plan to achieve the daunting task.

The early goal set by the duo was for GW Votes to register 2,000 students over the 2003–04 academic year. They hoped to build interest in the project throughout the fall semester, possibly attract as many as 800 new voters, and then expand their efforts in the spring with an eye towards an additional 1,200 students. So far their success has exceeded all expectations. In the fall semester GW votes registered 1,117 students.

“We thought we were being optimistic, but it turns out we low-balled,” said Buckley regarding the 2,000 new-voter goal. “In a school like this, that’s quite impressive because you would think that quite a few students would be registered already.”

A collaboration between GW Votes and more than a dozen student organizations, including the the Black Student Union, College Democrats, College Republicans, Program Board, GW Chapter of the NAACP and Jewish Student Alliance, has been crucial to the project’s success. Rather than investing limited time and resources to host registration events, the partnership has enabled GW Votes to piggy-back on the activities and efforts of these and other campus groups. During key campus activities such as the Oct. 26 block party held by the Foggy Bottom community group FRIENDS, Kweisi Mfume’s address to the GW NAACP or the recent State of the Union rally hosted by the College Republicans, GW Votes was on hand with registration forms at the ready.

“Our approach has been two-pronged,” Buckley explained. “First bring them to us. We’ve done that by working through attractive events. The second part is bringing it to them, actually go to the dorms and knock on the doors.”

In November GW Votes held its first “Dorm Storm,” during which volunteers knocked on the door of every freshman student on campus. Former DC Mayor Marion Barry was on hand to pump up the crowd of 200 volunteers before hand, getting them ready for their task. The event resulted in nearly 500 registrations.

Through the spring semester GW Votes will continue to position itself at campus events, culminating in a week-long push in April loosely timed with the tax deadline. Buckley hopes to attract several congressmen as well as local DC leaders such as the mayor, members of the city council and members of the ANC during the week to talk about issues that are affecting college students.

After the spring semester GW Votes will direct its efforts toward Colonial Inauguration and then launch straight into more dorm storms when students return in the fall. When the registration deadline for the 2004 election passes in October, the project will concentrate on getting these new voters to the polls, or assisting them with filing absentee ballots. GW Votes is working on developing a way to make absentee balloting easier. Following the November election, Buckley expects GW Votes to have developed a system future volunteers can follow to mobilize the student body to get people registered.

“This is a huge pool from which to pull,” said Buckley, explaining the GW Votes motto “It’s Our Time in History.”

“Every four years there is a group that says ‘We won this election.’ If we exercise the kind of potential we have, this could be the biggest political sea change since the Nixon southern strategy.”

Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu