Elon students can still register and then vote absentee in their home states - all with a few clicks of the mouse.
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UPDATE: As of Sept. 25, 2012, more than 750 students have completed their voter registrations using TurboVote. More than 900 (including some who recently registered) have completed ballot requests to be sent to the campus addresses.
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PREVIOUS UPDATE: As of Sept. 19, 2012, more than 350 students have completed their voter registrations. A total of 467 students (including some who recently registered) have completed ballot requests to be sent to their campus addresses.
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PREVIOUS UPDATE: As of Aug. 29, 2012, hundreds of students have registered to vote or sent in ballot requests through TurboVote. The service remains open through Sept. 25 to anyone with an Elon email address. View TurboVote’s up-to-date statistics about Elon University here.
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Elon University is partnering this fall with TurboVote, a project of Democracy Works, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization whose mission is to improve democracy through greater citizen participation in the electoral process.
Every state currently provides absentee ballots for college students, though many students find the process of registration and absentee voting cumbersome and difficult.
TurboVote makes voting easy through a simultaneous online voter registration and ballot request process that takes minutes to complete. Register to vote by visiting http://elon.turbovote.org
“We know that when students vote early, they’ll vote more often the rest of their lives,” said Associate Professor Sharon Spray, chair of the Department of Political Science & Public Administration and advisor to the National Campaign for Political & Civic Engagement. “Students will go back and vote in their local elections, too. It’s not just the federal elections. It’s what they’ll do at home from here forward.”
“This is about feeling empowered and having your voice counted.”
TurboVote runs until National Campaign Registration Day on September 25, 2012. This is the last day when it is feasible to register a student and return a stamped absentee ballot to them by way of the U.S. Postal Service and still be sure they can get a ballot for the November election.
The service is currently available only to those with an Elon email address – including faculty and staff.
For more information, contact Sharon Spray at sspray@elon.edu or (336) 278-6430.