When University of Colorado at Boulder students start classes this year they will be greeted by one of the largest and most aggressive national grassroots young voter registration campaigns ever seen in Boulder.
Known as the New Voters Project, the campaign has teamed up with UCSU, CU-Boulder's student government, and the campus Student Vote Coalition to sign up 9, 000 students before the Oct. 3 voter registration deadline.
"We really feel that the biggest responsibility that we have as students and citizens is to vote," said UCSU Tri-Executive Joseph Neguse. "It's time for students here at CU and across the nation to become more politically active," he said.
Plans for registering voters on the Boulder campus include:
* A talk by tri-executive Neguse at the Aug. 20 convocation. Each new student will be given a registration card to fill out and collect following the convocation.
* Registration tables are stationed this week through Aug. 20 at the University Memorial Center, the ID Card Center, at Regent Hall and in the Hill commercial area adjacent to campus.
* Registration tables also will be set up outside Folsom Field for the Sept. 4 football game against CSU and the Sept. 18 game against North Texas State.
* Permanent campus voter registration stations have been established in the
Recreation Center, Wardenburg Health Center, the Environmental Center, University Memorial Center, Norlin Library and the Women's Resource Center.
* An "All Campus Voter Registration Drive" involving 12 registration tables across the campus will take place Sept. 13 through Sept. 17.
* The Student Vote Coalition will run a "Voter Education Weeks" campaign with various activities from Oct. 18 through Oct. 29.
* Voter registration links will be available on a number of CU Web pages frequently visited by students.
* UCSU will provide transportation for students to vote early at the County Clerk's Office Oct. 18 to Oct. 22 and Oct. 25 to Oct. 29. Transportation also will be provided to popular student precincts on Election Day.
The New Voters Project is funded through an $8.5 million grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts, an independent non-profit public interest foundation. The campaign is working with more than 20 campuses in six states.
Organized by George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management and state Public Interest Research Groups, the project's goal is to register more than 260,000 young voters nationwide between the ages of 18 to 24 and contact another 500,000 to 750,000 in the final weeks before the election.
"The biggest strength of this project is that young people are mobilizing young people," said Rebecca Wallach, the Boulder campus organizer for the project. "We are confident we will meet our goal of registering 9, 000 new voters this fall through the joint efforts of UCSU, Student Vote Coalition and New Voters Project," Wallach predicted.
However, she said volunteers are needed to help the project reach its goal. To volunteer call (303) 492-5449 or visit the New Voters Project office, room 345, in the University Memorial Center.
For more information about New Voter Project go to the Web site at .
For more information on voter registration see .