Introduction: Let's Get Started!

Hello, and welcome to the blog of Ohio Campus Compact’s initiative to get more college students to vote in the upcoming 2008 election. Voting is an essential part of citizenship and democracy. Too often, however, people between the ages of 18 to 24 feel disenfranchised and do not fulfill their duty to vote.

Ohio Campus Compact understands this and is working with many partners to raise awareness in Ohio to ensure Ohio’s colleges and universities are doing their part to energize these voters. We also understand that we cannot plan events for almost 140 colleges and universities. Instead, we are working collaboratively with our partners to help institutions plan events on their own campuses.

Our roll is to be the information gatherers, data collectors, facilitators, and collaborators.

At this writing, there are only 111 days left until the general election on November 4^th. This election has already proved seminal. In the 2000 primary (the last primary with both major parties conducting a competitive primary) only 15% of people age 18-29 voted. In the 2008 primary, that increased to 25%! More and more young people are also realizing that the actions of our leaders today on issues such as climate change, social security solvency, fiscal deficits, and energy independence, affect our lives many years from now,

In Ohio, voter turnout of people age 18-24 has also been increasing. In the 2000 general election, only 42% showed up to the polls. In 2004, this increased a full 13 percentage points to 55%. At the end of this cycle I am confident we will be able to look back and say that we again saw an increase in voter turnout, which was at least partly due to our efforts.

This goal can not be reached unless every school is engaged in this initiative. This is why I decided to create this blog. I will be calling each school individually and sending information to them to help with their voter engagement activities, but this blog can definitely help. With this blog, we can keep everybody together on a more constant basis and act as a hub of information for Ohio voter engagement activities. I plan to post resources, discuss activities occurring on various campuses, and encouraging a dialog on how we can improve our activities.

In the meantime, please check out http://www.compact.org/vote/, http://www.yourvoteyourvoice.org/, and http://www.declareyourself.com/.

If you have any questions or comments please feel free to post a comment. You can also email me at Kyle.Bohland@yahoo.com

Thank for your interest and I look forward to working with you!

Kyle Bohland