In 1996, only 54 percent of registered Americans voted. Now with a new mandate under the 1998 Higher Education Act requiring colleges to distribute voter registration forms, the project is even more important in the 2000 general election. Our college and university communities should become a setting for discussion of the issues that will shape not only our campuses, but also our nation, in the years to come. As part of the project, each campus is encouraged to adopt a nonpartisan League of Women Voters model, giving candidates and members of the community an opportunity to convene for discussions, to share information, to explore the implications of public policy positions, and then to vote their conscience. The National Voter Registration Act makes it possible for every member of the campus community to register right on campus, where they work or study.
Resident students can even use the federal form to register to vote back home.
This gives us a chance to dramatically increase the number of voters in our college communities. If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. We encourage presidents to work with the registrar, the dean of students, the leaders of student organizations, and all employee groups to maximize this opportunity for voter registration. This project can focus our common discourse, promote the vital responsibility of citizenship, and once again make our colleges and universities a setting in which the important issues of campus and nation are discussed and acted upon. As in 1996 and 1998, the National Campus Voter Registration Project has been endorsed by the Washington Higher Education Secretariat.