Go Green! Registrations put campus in top 10 for voter interest

War, an iffy job market and rising college costs have UW-Green Bay students registering in record numbers to help decide the McCain-Obama race.

Both Republican and Democratic student groups report a surge in interest. While it’s conventional wisdom that young people trend liberal, that’s up for debate, at least among the 18-to-21-year-old voters who live at UW-Green Bay. In 2004, the results on campus (Kerry 624, Bush 591) closely mirrored larger city and regional patterns.

“It is vital for us as students, to get our voices heard in this upcoming election,” said Amber Stuettgen (at left), a senior Social Change and Development major. “We have heard a lot of talk about the financial crisis being the worst our nation has been in since the Great Depression, and we are losing loved ones to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Statewide, the Wisconsin Student Public Interest Research Group has been touring campuses to mobilize voters.

WISPIRG’s efforts at UW-Green Bay make it likely that new voter registration for this election will easily surpass that for the 2004 Bush-Kerry race. In that election, 1,215 voters — all residents of the housing complex — cast ballots at the on-campus polling site.

About 2,000 students live on campus. Another 4,000 commute. Robert Guise, the UW-Green Bay coordinator for WISPIRG, factors in those students when he says he expects to have approximately 80 percent of the student body registered to vote on election day.

Ricky Staley, president of the Student Government Association at UW-Green Bay, says a strong primary turnout in spring was another positive indicator.

“One of the beautiful systems we have in this country is the ability to create change. It is one of our responsibilities as an institution to get students to stand up and do something that will make a difference,” said Staley. “This election is groundbreaking in our country’s history and it’s awesome to think of the impact we could have.”

The voter-registration success at UW-Green Bay even gained national mention. At one point this fall, the campus ranked among the top 10 in the Ultimate College Bowl. The nationwide competition will provide a Death Cab for Cutie concert, scholarship money and Guitar Hero II games for the school that registers the largest percentage of voters.

Another barometer is the number of students who pre-registered online at the website www.StudentVote.org. UW-Green Bay finished in seventh place nationally by having 545 students. (Among the other schools with as many online sign-ups were some with 40,000 students or more.)

According to Staley, the SGA president, the biggest push now is getting students to the polls on Nov. 4. The dedicated polling place for on-campus residents is in the newly renovated University Union.

— Reported by editorial intern Sarah Duchow, senior, Communication major, Oconomowoc