Students celebrated Tuesday afternoon in the Park Blocks as student government reached its goal of 3,500 newly registered student voters.
Wearing a large “Voting is for Lovers" button, Johnnie Ozimkowski of Associated Students of Portland State University (ASPSU) said he was thrilled with how the registration drive had turned out. “We broke our goal as of noon and they just keep coming in," he said.
Tuesday was the final day for Oregonians to register.
“The more voices we have at the polls, the more power we'll have for student issues," said Courtney Sproule, the OSA's media coordinator. “Students are paying more and getting less — our higher education system is in budget crisis. Now is the time, if ever, to have a vote and say what we want."
“We want politicians to pay attention to [student voters]," he said. “And they pay attention to people that vote."
Now that the deadline for registration is past, the voter activists are turning their energy to other facets of the election: voter education and get-out-the-vote.
The planned presentations include debates about Measures 41, 43, 45, 46, 47 and 48 as well as a candidate forum.
“In June the OSA sent a survey to legislative candidates asking them about issues which interest students," she said. Issues surveyed included funding, tuition, need-based aid and ASPIRE, a high school mentoring program designed to bring underrepresented populations to college.
OSPIRG's newly elected chapter chair, Amanda Fortin, said the final step would be getting students to turn in their ballots. “It's going to take a lot of dedicated phone banking," she said. “A lot of tabling."
Ozimkowski was optimistic that students were going to affect politics rather than the other way around.
