The Campus Y and Meantime Coffee Co. are fighting low voter turnout with a voter registration drive on Thursday.
Patty Matos, a senior at UNC and employee at Meantime, worked with senior DTH staffer Alexis Hinnant, who interned at DoSomething.org this summer, to present the idea of a voter registration drive to the Campus Y co-presidents Alli Whitenack and Jessica Bolin. With resources from DoSomething, they coordinated the effort in just a few days.
The first phase of the drive will occur outside of the Campus Y this Thursday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Next week, voter registration will happen from Monday to Thursday inside Meantime from 7:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and on Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
According to the United States Elections Project, voter turnout was 36.3 percent in the 2014 mid-term elections, the second-lowest in a federal election ever, while voter turnout in the 18-29 age group during midterm elections has not surpassed 23 percent in the last three decades.
“I think that it’s really important to get college students to vote because young people around the college age are one of the demographics that has one of the lowest voter turnout rates,” Whitenack said. “I think it has to do with time. Everyone is really busy. But, I also think it has to do with accessibility and locations of voting places."
The closest polling location to campus the Chapel of the Cross on Franklin Street, Whitenack said. Those who participate in early voting can vote at any polling location.
To participate in the drive, students only need to show up, Matos said.
"We will have resources to check to see that the registration is up to date. We'll have resources about absentee voting and early voting," Matos said. "Since you know in a college community you have a lot of people who might be registered back home. Or who might be interested in registering here in Chapel Hill. We wanted to sort of open a dialogue for people to know what their options are for voting in the upcoming midterms.”
Matos is originally from Venezuela and became a U.S. citizen seven years ago. She participated in the 2016 primary elections, her first time voting. Since then, encouraging people to participate in the electoral process and vote has been important to her. In the midterms, when reduced media coverage may contribute to low voter turnout, each individual vote matters, Matos said.
