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BY BEN OLDFIELD

In print | Published October 21, 2004

Now that registration deadlines have passed, Swarthmore students concerned with the voter turnout in Delaware County are shifting their target from Chester streets to the very homes of potential voters.

Facilitated by the Swarthmore Voter Registration Coalition, students have been offered various “Get Out the Vote” volunteer opportunities to go door-to-door on Election Day to assist Delaware County residents, including Swarthmore students and staff, in getting to the polls.

“This is a very important election regardless of your party affiliation,” SVRC co-founder and co-chair Ethan Ucker ‘07 said. "We’re responsible for only the nonpartisan opportunities, but we want to give students the choice to get out the vote in any way they want."

The SVRC is running nonpartisan efforts both on campus and, with Delaware County Wage Peace and Justice, in Chester and Upper Darby, to help those whom the SVRC previously registered to get to the polls, Ucker said.

“Our task will be to remind registered voters of information about their local polling place and make sure things run smoothly,” SVRC board member Sam Berger ’05 said. Volunteers will be needed on Election Day to phone-bank from campus, go door-to-door to the homes of voters registered by SVRC and drive voters to the polls free of charge, he said.

“I’m hoping for 100 to 150 students to help out,” Berger said.

In addition to its voter involvement efforts, SVRC will also compare voting rolls, obtained from the Swarthmore Borough Community Center which list all registered voters in Delaware County, with its own database of voters that it helped to register.

“We’ll have lawyers on call in case our database doesn’t match the official list,” Ucker said. “There’s a history of disenfranchised college students in Delaware County.”

According to Ucker, the three partisan GOTV opportunities are all Democratic efforts, though they were not sought out by SVRC. Even though SVRC is not officially sponsoring these efforts, they were included in an e-mail from the coalition to those students on the SVRC e-mail list that describes all Election Day activities available.

America Coming Together, an organization that is partisan but not working under the direction of the Democratic Party, is conducting what spokesman Andrew Poag has called the “largest grassroots voter registration effort ever before.” The national organization is now focusing its efforts on swing states and has 11 offices in Pennsylvania.

The group’s efforts are similar to those of the SVRC except that they target only Democrats. ACT is seeking Swarthmore students to go door-to-door on Election Day, asking registered Democrats in Delaware County if they have voted and to provide information about the local polling place.

Students who work from noon until 8 p.m. will be paid $60.

Poag is expecting many workers from the Swarthmore community because of their personal investment in local issues, predicting their dissatisfaction with the way the Bush Administration has dealt with them. “Among other reasons, Pennsylvania lost 95,000 jobs in the last three years,” he said. “So this is a very important election for many students who might be staying in the state to work after they graduate.”

ACT college recruiters Jess Work and Liza Clark have been on campus several days this week signing students up to work on Election Day. Although they appreciate the nonpartisan efforts of SVRC, they stress the importance of the Democratic vote in Delaware County.

“Election Day is not the day to be nonpartisan,” Work said. “Plus, there’s a history of voter intimidation for Democrats living in Delaware County.”

Work and Clark are hoping for over 100 student workers from the college. As of dinner on Tuesday, 70 students had signed up.

The other partisan GOTV efforts on campus will be run by the Swarthmore College Democrats, affiliated with the Democratic Party, and the MoveOn Leave No Voter Behind Campaign, not affiliated with the party but dealing solely with Democratic voters.

With help from volunteers, College Democrats will be providing transportation to the polls for registered Democrats in Chester and surrounding areas.

“We’ll be following the campaign’s direction, making phone calls and helping with transportation to the polls,” College Democrats treasurer Patrick Hart ‘06 said. For those who are not comfortable working under the Democratic Party, Hart encouraged volunteering for SVRC or ACT. "ACT’s a great organization," he said.

The MoveOn Leave No Voter Behind Campaign will begin its “Four Days to Avoid Four Years of Bush” the weekend before Election Day. MoveOn will be on campus this week looking for callers, canvassers, drivers and poll monitors to inform and assist Democratic voters in Delaware County during these four days.

Ucker and SVRC have been in contact with Registrar Martin Warner and individual professors to address the concern of students missing classes on Election Day. The decision has been left to the professors. Biology professor Amy Cheng Vollmer, for example, has postponed all Nov. 2 biology seminars.

Dean Bob Gross ’62 advised students in an e-mail Tuesday to speak with their professors in advance if they will not be attending classes on Election Day.

SVRC is currently applying for funding from the Lang Center and the President’s Office to host an Election Returns Broadcast Party in Upper Tarble on Election Night.

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