Christina Pesavento
Staff Writer
ALTHOUGH THE NEXT election is over a year away, the excitement that accompanies the lead-up to that first Tuesday of November has already begun to build across the nation. Here at Notre Dame, efforts are currently underway to encourage students to become more politically active and better educated citizens.
Leading these efforts is the ND Votes ’08 Taskforce, an organization founded by Rachel Tomas Morgan, the director of International Service Learning and Justice Education at the Center for Social Concerns. It is comprised of students representing a multitude of politically-oriented groups on campus from both sides of the political spectrum. Members meet on a bi-monthly basis to discuss strategies and policies that would help promote political engagement within the Notre Dame student body.
“In 2004 and 2006, I worked with students to plan similar events and saw some good successes from which I thought we could continue to build,” says Morgan. “I called together this task force of students to give leadership to voter registration, education, and mobilization (REM) efforts at Notre Dame because these kinds of campaigns are more successful when they are student led.”
Instead of focusing their efforts on registering voters of a certain party, the group is devoted to increasing student participation regardless of political orientation. As Allegra Gassman, representing the University Affairs Student Senate Committee, states, “We want to be a bipartisan facilitator on campus. Our main goals are to register voters and educate them about the election and the issues. We want students to become politically active.”
Indeed, the various groups represented demonstrate the diversity of opinions on campus, reflecting the bipartisan nature of its efforts. Some of these include the Progressive Student Alliance, Notre Dame Right to Life, College Libertarians, and the NAACP.
The students of ND Votes ’08 take political involvement very seriously. “Like any other American citizen,” says Carol Hendrickson, representing Women in Politics, “I believe it is our civic and moral duty to vote. Democracy depends on citizen participation, and to improve society as a whole--especially as educated students--we need to get involved.”
They also emphasize our generation’s responsibility for the future. Gassman says, “At this point, our age group is key because we will determine the future of politics. Our generation has seen a lot of changes, and our opinions are finally starting to matter. We’ve grown up with these issues of abortion, environmental issues, and terrorism, but since we’re just starting to get actively involved in the political process, we are a fresh set of opinions and ideas. Our votes are important because we will have to deal with these issues and their consequences in the future.”
Morgan also points out the significance of civic duty in terms of Catholicism. She quotes the 2004 statement of the US Catholic Bishops, who declare, “In the Catholic tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue; participation in the political process is a moral obligation.”
Thus far, the members of ND Votes ’08 have already begun to implement a number of ideas to promote political participation. In addition to offering voter registration and providing information regarding absentee ballots, they hope to draw attention to political issues that students might find interesting and to help them make informed decisions when determining which candidates to support.
One unique idea involves establishing voter information database in order to organize information about potential voters and help them register. Other possibilities include having an elections commissioner for each residence hall, as well as holding a competition between the dorms to see who can register the most voters. Ultimately, Morgan hopes their efforts will not only assist in the upcoming election, but in all future elections.
“I believe that the impact this group can leave behind is some kind of lasting infrastructure for registering voters on our campus and to inculcate to each incoming class their responsibility, both civically and morally, to register to vote and to exercise an informed and responsible vote. This kind of civic and political participation is healthy for a university community and necessary for the ongoing health of the democracy of a nation.”
If students want to get involved, they can soon visit www.centerforsocialconcerns.nd.edu and click “ND Votes ‘08” or contact Rachel Tomas Morgan at rtomasmo@nd.edu.
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