Oregon Student Action Center
2008 Student Vote Campaign
Students will be mobilizing more students than ever for the 2008 Student Vote Campaign!
Stay tuned for more details.
To get involved, sign up here!
2006 Student Vote Results: Students Build Power at the Polls!
As part of the nonpartisan Student Vote Coalition (SVC), OSA helped to register 22,296 students to vote in the 2006 election (well over our goal of 18,000!). Students also worked to ensure that our peers turned out to vote by executing even more voter education and get-out-the-vote tactics than during the 2004 Presidential election. This included the first OSCC Vote Campaign, which educated communities of color about the importance of voting to build power to win concrete change.
Discuss OSA’s Student Vote Campaign on our discussion forum:
What should students do to turn out communities of color to vote in Oregon?
Which campus has the best vote strategy?
Final Student Vote Numbers
Here’s a few of the stats:
•SVC registered 22,296 students to vote!
•In two of the most student-dense precincts in the state, voter turnout increased 42 and 43 percent over the previous mid-term election.
•To do non-partisan education for student voters, OSA hosted 33 candidate and issue debates and forums on campus, gave 198 Voter Education Presentations, and handed out 17,350 OSA Student Voter Guides.
•To get out the student vote, OSA made 18,654 phone calls and knocked on 7,138 doors.
And a couple of the results:
•Two ballot measures that would have critically jeopardized funding for postsecondary education were defeated.
•After years of state disinvestment in postsecondary education, college students were one of the top funding priorities in the Governor’s Recommended Budget, released shortly after the election.
Links:
OSA Student Voter Guide & Voter Education Presentations
Student Vote Fact Sheet, with stats on OSA’s vote work
Press Release on the final results of the SVC’s Student Vote Campaign
OSA Press on the Student Vote Campaign (with over 75 media hits!)
Article in the OSA Outlook on the 2006 Student Vote Campaign by former OSA Board Chair Megan Driver—scroll to page 2.
One of the largest student-led vote mobilization efforts in the country, the Student Vote Coalition consists of OSA, Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group (OSPIRG), Oregon Community College Student Association (OCCSA), Building Votes, and many other organizations.
Why Students Voted in the 2006 Election
Voting gives us power in the legislature. Last election, the Student Vote Coalition registered 33,617 students to vote. The next year, Oregon students won an historical victory for need-based aid. It’s no coincidence that 2004 was called the “year of the student voter” and in 2005 college students were considered the winners in the Oregon legislature.
We must make 2006 again the “year of the student voter” as this is certainly the “year of student issues.” College students in Oregon are currently facing a doomsday scenario: as we pay more and more for an education, we’re getting less and less from our under-funded institutions. It’s no surprise that in the recently released national “report card” for postsecondary education, Oregon received—yet again—an “F” in Affordability of its public colleges and universities. Students must work to convince our legislators to turn around this trend of disinvestment in postsecondary education by investing in our universities and colleges to keep tuition increases low and increase need-based aid.
But this work can’t wait until the legislature convenes next year—students can only be successful if we work now to build our power at the polls. This election, we’ll be electing the candidates who will have decision power over our issues. Which legislators do you want to be making the decisions that affect our lives? We’ll also be electing a governor who can choose to invest in postsecondary education or to pay for the cost of college on the backs of students. Who do you want to see in that position?
And we can’t forget about Oregon’s ballot initiative process. This is not the year to let the ballot measures go under your radar—most of the ballot measures this year directly affect students and two of them (Federal Substitution and the State Spending Limit) could have an impact on our state budget, including funding for postsecondary education.
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Site last updated on 05/08/2008 at 10:40 PM.
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