B Y BEATRIZ GOMEZ
The Mountaineer published a story in the previous issue about students wondering what happened to their absentee ballots. Although The Mountaineer contacted Assistant Director of Residence Life Kyle Pretsch, we received a response from him a few hours after we had sent the newspaper to print. The following article is an update with Mr. Pretsch’s take on the missing ballots issue.
According to Pretsch, the Department of Student Life became involved in helping students with requests for registration forms and absentee ballot forms because they felt it was important that the students were “both encouraged and empowered to cast their ballots on November 4, 2008.”
The Department of Student Life had a meeting with representatives from Student Government, Intercultural Center, Student Activities, Pre-Law club, and Ms. Fonteyn to discuss the possibilities and opportunities of “Get Out the Vote”, a program launched during each presidential campaign. After of the meeting, Pretsch believed the community would be of great assistance to the area.
Assistant Director of Admissions, Kim Hoag, and Noka Garrapy of IT Services helped Student Life by gathering data tracking every student’s home state and permanent address. With the help of student Corrine Vigen, they contacted election officials from every state represented on campus. They acquired paperwork from 99% of the localities contacted to provide to the residents. They packaged the paperwork on a hall-by-hall basis, and asked RAs to distribute the paperwork to their residents, answer questions, and refer residents to Student Life, if necessary. According to Pretsch, RAs were not contracted to do the job, but “were offered an incentive to either get an absentee ballot application completed, a National Voter Registration completed, or a pledge to vote card signed.” The goal for having RAs distribute paperwork triggered student discussion and encouraged students to complete paperwork regardless of their political affiliation.
One problem encountered by Student Life was that many students didn’t know when their deadlines were or even how to register to vote, especially since registration processes varied from state to state, which made it difficult for students to understand.
Pretsch said that “it was never our goal to force students to vote for any candidate, know their preferences, or influence their choices.” Instead, their goal was to make the voting process as simple and as accessible to students as possible.
There are many reasons why students didn’t receive ballots. “First off, voter fraud is rampant and election mishaps are at the height of the news every year,” said Pretsch. “We knew that by getting involved, we might be blamed or associated with common election problems,” he added.
Another cause for missing ballots may have been as a cause of improperly filled ballots. “Often times, students were turning in applications that were improperly filled out or incorrect. However, it would be fraud against federal law for our staff to change any of these applications,” said Pretsch. Other mistakes included students marking that they wanted to pick up their applications, not putting check marks in the appropriate places, filing applications after the deadline, putting their home address as their mailing address, filling out applications that didn’t correspond to their state, and applying to vote in a town different from which they registered, not to mention potential errors on the part of the US Postal Service, which had hundreds of applications coming in daily.
Kyle Pretsch was informed by President of Student Senate Peter Davis, about the missing ballots a few nights before the election. At this point, Pretsch decided that “we would fax absentee ballot applications and I would assume responsibility for overnight postage on absentee ballots that were received.” However, student Melissa Markstrom, one of the people who helped organize the Rideshare program, noted that she and others who organized Rideshare “were sending students down to Kyle’s office because he commited to mailing ballots overnight at the expense of ResLife, but then students were coming back up to us and saying that Kyle changed his mind.”
For those students without a ballot the day prior to the election, a Rideshare program was offered in order to help those who wanted to vote find a ride to their hometowns. Students were able to get as far north as Maine and as far south as Pennsylvania on Election Day.
