Lost on campus: the ballot box

Like many of her classmates here on the Regis College campus, freshman Mary Tobin has registered to vote and stands eager to cast a ballot in her first presidential election.

To her chagrin, however, Ms. Tobin has something else in common with a good many of her peers: She's still not sure what voting entails. And with absentee deadlines fast approaching in her native Florida, she's aware hers could become a vote uncounted.

"I have to figure out what I have to do," Tobin says. "And how soon I have to do that."

From here to Berkeley, Calif., indicators suggest college campuses are teeming with an interest in electoral politics unlike anything in the past quarter century. Yet for the 20 million Americans who came of voting age since 2000, getting to the polls for the first time continues to be a process fraught with obstacles and confusion.

Example: 33 percent of the nation's colleges and universities are failing in their legal duty to provide students with voter-registration materials, according to a report released last week by the Harvard Institute of Politics and The Chronicle of Higher Education. At stake for violators is nothing short of their federal funding, yet some schools seem determined "to educate, not register," according to Institute of Politics research director David King.

"The old mentality still lingers in half the colleges and universities that believe it's not their job," says Mr. King. "There's a question whether they're in the business of creating good citizens. But actually, it's the law."

Lagging behind in terms of registering students were the nation's private colleges and universities, according to the report, which affixed an "out of compliance" label to 44 percent of responding private institutions. On campus, "out of compliance" generally means students aren't finding voter registration forms either in their mailboxes or at a distribution center.

Some voices beg to differ. The Harvard survey "didn't capture the reality," according to David Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. He said results were unreliable because the survey of 815 presidents took place during the vacation month of August.

Thirty-one percent of those surveyed responded. When the association did its own e-mail survey of member institutions last week, it found 95 percent of the 360 responding schools are conducting campus-wide campaigns to get voter registration materials to students.

"There is a very keen interest" in helping students register and vote, says Mr. Warren. If a school has failed to provide forms, he says, the problem may lie with state election officials, who don't always answer requests.

No matter who's to blame, students this year seem in no mood to miss out. The Harvard survey found that 1 out of every 3 campuses had organized rallies or protests. At Regis, political scientist David Smailes has been on campus through three prior presidential elections, but this year he observes something new: Students are calling him to find out how to vote.

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