For several weeks, volunteers on Grounds have been working to register students to vote prior to this evening’s deadline. Some students who registered on Grounds, however, may not be registered officially to vote because of confusion about the registration form.
First-year College student Alan Rogers said the volunteer registering him to vote told him he only needed to put the last four digits of his Social Security number on the registration form. Suspicious about this information, Rogers said he later called the Albemarle County registrar and the Charlottesville City registrar to double-check that he was registered. Rogers said he was told by both registrars there was no record of him being registered to vote.
Rogers said he was told by the registrar that “a lot of people have been calling to see if they’re registered and they’re not.” He added, “I’m not sure if it was just a mistake, but when I re-registered, the application said specifically to fill out your entire Social Security number.”
Charlottesville Deputy Registrar Dianne Gilliland said this issue was reported to the registrar’s office last week. When the staff in the registrar’s office see an application that has been filled out incorrectly, Gilliland said, they try to notify the person, but they are unable to do so now because of the large influx of applications.
“There’s not enough time for both data entry and notifying people with incorrect applications,” she said.
Charlottesville Registrar Sheri Iachetta said all of the ballots missing full Social Security numbers came from the Wertland Street Obama office.
“We went and alerted the campaign when we realized it was somebody who was giving out wrong information,” Iachetta said, adding that the confusion stems from the fact that students only need the last four digits of their Social Security number if they are filling out an absentee ballot form.
“I’m concerned about it but there’s only so much we can do,” Iachetta said.
Hoos for Obama President Sam Shirazi, a former Cavalier Daily Opinion columnist, said he did not personally speak with Iachetta about the incident; however, he said it is possible that the incorrect forms came from the Wertland Street Obama office.
“It’s not that we mess up; it’s that [the people registering] mess up and we catch the mistakes,” Shirazi said. “They’re filling out the form and we’re just turning it in.”
Hoos for Obama volunteers do try to catch mistakes in the forms; however, sometimes mistakes can slip through the cracks, Shirazi said.
“It’s not really our responsibility to check if [the forms are] correct,” Shirazi said. “Obviously we want to because we want them to get their cards, [so] we try our best to make sure it’s correct, but we’re human.”
If students think they filled out their forms incorrectly, Gilliland recommended they fill out the form again and take it to the registrar’s office today. Iachetta also urged students concerned about the accuracy of their forms to fill out another one.
“I’d much rather have several duplicate forms,” Iachetta said, “rather than have some student given wrong information by a ... group.”
The effort to register more voters has been a serious goal throughout the semester for both McCain and Obama supporters on Grounds.
“When we campaign door-to-door, we try to register voters,” Hoos for McCain president John Sweeney said. “During any campaign event we have, we also try to register voters.”
Shirazi said his organization’s priorities “are getting unregistered voters to register, providing absentee ballots and providing an option for people to vote in Charlottesville.”
Efforts to target college campuses are taking place not just at the University, but across the commonwealth, as supporters of both the Republican and Democratic tickets seek student support in the battleground state.
“At Liberty University, there is a huge push to get people registered to vote,” Sweeney said. “Liberty is a huge Republican stronghold.”
Shirazi noted that September statistics show a total of 105,000 new voters in Virginia, many of whom are students.
In addition, a number of Web sites have cropped up encouraging students to register. A Web site called CountMore.org has sought to increase the number of students registering to vote in the upcoming 2008 presidential election by showing students where their vote will count the most, in their school state or home state. Though the site is relatively new, Matt Lerner, chief technology officer of Front Seat, a Seattle-based software company that designed the site, says he still thinks the site will have an impact.
Shirazi, however, said encouraging students to vote through a Web site does not have the same potential for success as registering students in person, noting that a Web site is too “impersonal.”
“[In] my experience, most students wouldn’t register through an online Web site,” Shirazi said.
Both Sweeney and Shirazi said their organizations will continue their registration efforts until tonight’s deadline.
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