The Student Government Association at Langston University recently organized a voter registration drive to get students registered to vote for the upcoming election.
However, they are now experiencing a major setback affecting every student that could register.
“Our main goal was to register as many voters as we can. With the voter registration drive, we registered 113 lions,” said Elise Thompson, vice president of the Student Government Association at Langston University. “But the frustrating part with that is we registered a lot of students, but we’re going to have to redo it.”
There was recently a voter purge in Oklahoma, impacting many citizens around the state.
Simultaneously, following the voter registration drive, an email was sent out stating any student who registered at the drive must register again.
“A voter purge is when they take people who aren’t supposed to be on the registry anymore, people who are deceased, people who are no longer citizens, or people who were falsely put on the registry,” said Damien Simmons, sophomore class president.
Thompson received an email from the university saying that residential hall addresses are invalid, even though they had been being used for years.
“There were about 450,000 voters that were purged. After that we received an email from the school and so it was a voter registration update,” said Thompson. “It says, ‘due to an unforeseen complication, the residential hall addresses are considered incomplete by the voter registration system. In place of it, we have to use a new mail mailing address, which is 701 Sammy Davis Jr Dr. Langston, OK 73050.’”
Simmons explains that while a voter purge is supposed to weed out people who are no longer eligible to vote, it is having a more disastrous effect.
“People are being purged but they haven’t died, or they are being purged for misinformation that wasn’t really misinformation,” said Simmons. “So, the problem with that is, if you are eligible to vote, and you get removed from this registry, you will not be able to vote if you are not put back on the registry.”
Student leaders at Langston are working to organize more voter registration events to correct this drawback.
Simmons wants to emphasize to students that amid the setbacks it is still imperative that students get out, register and stay informed.
“I know a lot of young people feel as if their vote doesn’t matter, and I know that a lot of young people feel as if the older generation has already put things set in stone for us, but it is up to us to make the change that we want to see,” said Simmons.
Thompson encourages students to not only be involved in the presidential election but the local elections as well.
“People are so focused on the presidential election, which is great, but I feel like they should really focus on the local elections, because they literally dictate everything from birth to death,” Thompson said.
Simmons aims to let students know that there is a way to verify whether they are currently registered to vote.
“Go to ‘iwillvote.com’ and type in your last name, your first name and the other information that they have on the website,” said Simmons. “And it will let you know if you are currently registered to vote and where you can vote based on if you’re registered. Also, the voter registration deadline is October 11, so if you are not registered now, please register.”
Students can also visit ‘vote.gov’ to explore how to register to vote online, by mail, or in person.
Cambrie Cannon
Staff Writer
Cambrie Cannon is a sophomore broadcast journalism and corrections major.
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The Gazette serves as the student voice of Langston University. It is produced within the Department of Communication as a teaching tool and local news source for the campus community. The views and opinions expressed within are those of the writers whose names appear with the articles and do not necessarily represent the views of Langston University.
