Young voters on the move In a reflection of heightened national involvement, student activists from RI are making an impact in this year's presidential election BY BRIAN C. JONES AND JOURNALISM STUDENTS AT SALVE REGINA UNIVERSITY
	About this story This story, written by Phoenix contributing writer Brian C. Jones, includes reporting by journalism students at Salve Regina University. Jones, an adjunct instructor at the university, assigned them to write stories gauging student involvement in the 2004 election on college campuses in Rhode Island. The students contributing to this story were Nora C. Connolly, Meghan Cook, Jennifer A. Costa, Shauna L. Crounse, Emily E. Dauenhauer, Lindsay T. Fairtile, Ashley R. Giandomenico, Mary-Jayne MacDonald, Mary K. McLeod, Ashley D. Merrick, Allison A. Olivier, and Kyle J. Otis. Last call for voters THINK IT’S too late to vote because you forgot to register? It’s a problem, especially for college students who forgot to apply for absentee ballots in their home states or didn’t sign up locally. But procrastinators are in luck — at least if they want to vote just for president and vice president. Would-be voters can register on Election Day at local canvassing boards, which will issue them a special ballot, according to Secretary of State Matthew A. Brown. "Even if you missed the registration deadline, you can still vote," Brown says, "and I encourage everybody to do that." — B.C.J.

AS ELECTION DAY 2004 approached in late October, a cheer rolled across the politically sophisticated campus of Brown University.

But the shouting wasn’t for Democrat John F. Kerry or Republican George W. Bush. It was for David Ortiz, who’d just hit a home run, helping to lock up the Boston Red Sox’s American League Championship Series victory over the New York Yankees. Yet if sports still outpolls politics — even on College Hill — political activism is making a big comeback at Brown, as well as other Rhode Island campuses and colleges across the nation. Thousands of young persons have registered to vote in Rhode Island, and hundreds have been active in a variety of national, state, and local campaigns.

Students are phoning voters, holding signs at rallies, and heading by the busload to New Hampshire, New England’s only battleground state. Between 300 and 400 Rhode Island college Democrats are active in the election this year, according to Seth Magaziner, a 21-year-old Brown junior who leads student Democrats at his own campus and in their statewide coalition. The Brown organization is sophisticated enough to have compiled a computer database, allowing activists to prod newly registered students via e-mail and cell phone, reminding them of polling place locations and offering Election Day rides. "We do everything but pull the lever," Magaziner says.

Although smaller, the statewide Republican coalition has grown to encompass about 80 active students this year, says University of Rhode Island senior Nathaniel C. Nelson, head of the URI and statewide GOP student groups. Student workers have gone to New Hampshire to help Bush and boosted local campaigns. Nelson, for example, is campaign manager for a Coventry town council candidate, Stephen J. Simo, a teacher and administrator at the URI Center for Student Leadership Development.

At the same time, years of youth-voter registration campaigns appear to be paying off. Rock the Vote, the national music industry effort, says it has registered 5115 young people via the Internet and another 694 in person in Rhode Island this year. Spokeswoman Cate Brandon — who graduated last year from Brown — says Rock the Vote’s computer program allows would-be voters to type in a zip code and other basic information. Their home computer then prints out a form with a ready-to-fold envelope — addressed to the appropriate election office.

Meanwhile, a new national poll by the Harvard University Institute of Politics finds sharply heightened election interest among college students this year compared to the last presidential election. The poll found that 84 percent of students plan to vote. Although those kinds of answers are always inflated, the experts say, they think as many as 53 percent will vote this year, compared to 42 percent four years ago. "These college students are coming — they are coming November 2," says John Della Volpe, a partner in the polling firm that ran the Harvard survey. "I think they are poised to make a very historic impact on this race, especially in swing states."

THE HEIGHTENED ACTIVISM this year has to be seen in context. Political interest on college campuses remains far below that of the 1960s and 1970s, when concern about the Vietnam War and the draft prompted class-cutting "teach-ins" and sometimes deadly demonstrations.

In fact, on some campuses, one has to look hard to find campaign posters and other obvious indications of political interest, and some students interviewed at random were unaware of organized political programs. "I don’t think the campus is interested in the election — I haven’t seen too many signs or heard much discussion," says Mike Batcheller, 20, a chemistry major at Providence College. Batcheller, of Grafton, Massachusetts, appeared turned off by the election process, saying, "I don’t think students make a difference. I think it’s a waste of time. I’m not even voting."

Michael Coyne, a junior active at WDOM-FM, the PC radio station, citing a lack of much activity beyond debates and registration drives, thinks the campus is mildly interested.

Historically, Providence College has produced some of Rhode Island’s leading politicians, including US Representative Patrick J. Kennedy and state Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva-Weed. What seems likely is that at PC, as other colleges, activism is confined to a minority of students, but that that fraction is bigger this year.

In fact, both the college Democrats’ Magaziner and the GOP’s Nelson regard PC as a fertile area for their organizations. Nelson recalls he how encouraged he was when he when he first met with PC Republicans. "I went to the first meeting, and I walked down the hall and almost didn’t go in the room — it was full of people. This is a college Republicans’ meeting? I was shocked," says Nelson, joking about the small numbers to which Republicans are accustomed in Rhode Island.

Even on larger campuses known for having a solid grip on politics, like Brown, comparatively small groups of activists struggle to bring mainstream students into the process. "We are not only battling conservatives, but apathy," Seth Magaziner says. "It could be better — I’m not going to lie. It’s getting better."

That numbers have grown at Brown may have something to do with Magaziner himself, who impresses faculty members both on and off the Brown campus with his organizing abilities. Some of his political savvy may be genetic. He’s the son of former Bill Clinton aide Ira Magaziner, who, with now-US Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, headed that administration’s ambitious, but failed attempt at national health-care reform. As a Brown student in the ’60s, Ira Magaziner led a reform drive that resulted in the university’s current interdisciplinary curriculum. (He now leads a Clinton initiative to attack AIDS in poor countries.)

Seth Magaziner, who is studying early American politics, says he took a mild interest in the Brown Democrats early on. Then, at the urging of friends, he ran for president last year. The group had an e-mail roster of about 600 students, with 40 considered active — that is, working on a project over three or four weeks. Now, Magaziner says, the group has 950 on the list, with 300 active members.

One of the young organizer’s first steps was to reach out to the state Democratic Party. The welcome response from the local party was in contrast, he says, to what student-activists have found in some other states. At the same time, the Rhode Island students put conditions on their participation: "We made it clear to the party we won’t just work for any Democrats," he says. "We tend to work for the more progressive candidates."

Local candidates getting help include Providence liberals — state Senator Rhoda E. Perry and House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox — as well as such House candidates as Scott J. Guthrie of Coventry, K. Nicholas Tsiongas of Tiverton, and Amy G. Rice of Portsmouth.

Student Democrats have made at least 10 trips to New Hampshire in buses supplied by the Kerry campaign. New Hampshire is a battleground state, one of 11 or so where the election could go either way. Rhode Islanders also gone to Pennsylvania, and they may organize a trip to Ohio.

One of their most innovative efforts at Brown, Magaziner says, has been to ensure that students voting outside Rhode Island — some in battleground states — get their absentee ballots. A 40-person task force was set up to help students learn the intricacies of individual state requirements for absentee ballots, and then to monitor the students’ progress in getting them. For the past month, college Democrats have been in action daily on at least one project, Magaziner says, adding that the challenge, with so much interest, has been ensuring that every volunteer is matched with a job.

Bill Lynch, the Democratic state chairman, says that students staff perhaps half of the 200 phones in use each day by the party. He thinks attitudes on campuses have changed since 2000. "Four years ago, there was some complacency on college campuses that Al Gore would just succeed Bill Clinton," Lynch says. "Now students realize that 400-to-500 votes can make a difference."

Magaziner believes the increased interest is spurred by issues that hit close to home — namely the war in Iraq, since students often know people serving there in the military — and the difficulty of some graduates in finding work. "The most important thing for people is jobs," he says. "That’s how you afford college."

Getting students to make a direct connection between politics and their own lives is the key to increasing their participation, says Secretary of State Matthew A. Brown. Prior to his own election two years ago, Brown headed up the City Year public-service program for young people, and then a project, known as the Democracy Compact, to increase overall voting.

Brown preaches that government touches people’s lives — when wars begin and end; the quality of the air and water; and the kind of schools that children. And he thinks this year, students understand the argument. "In the last few weeks, when I’ve talked to college students, I’ve still felt like I’ve needed to persuade them," he says. "But I feel like they came with more open minds, and that they were interested, that they were concerned about the issues."

Brown’s frequent appearances at campuses this fall include speaking to three classes and two larger gatherings at Johnson & Wales University. He found "packed auditoriums, you know standing room-only, and it’s not because of me — they don’t know who I am. It’s because of the issues."