Students for Obama Extend Their Reach
Michael O'Brien
Posted: 03.21.2008 / 3:04 PM EDT
In the Michigan Union the other day, one flyer stuck out.
 From Students for Obama, it was an advertisement soliciting U-M students from Pennsylvania to contact the Obama campaign. Especially since a revote in Michigan and Florida appear out the window, Students for Obama at the University of Michigan have shifted their focus to the Pennsylvania primary, on April 22.
“Michigan is one of the largest public schools in the country, with a lot of students coming from out-of-state,” said Tom Duvall, the leader of Students for Obama in an interview. He pointed out that the University of Michigan is actually the twentieth most populous school for Pennsylvanians. The group hopes to help students interested in voting for Barack Obama prepare absentee ballots for the much-anticipated primary next month.
With that substantial a number of Pennsylvanians on campus, Duvall said, the response has been decent. “We’ve had a number of people contact us,” he said.
Students for Obama made similar efforts for the Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada students, Duvall said, but did not court Ohio students as aggressively, due to geographical closeness. That said, the Obama supporters on campus made the short trip across the border to support their candidate on the day of the primary earlier this month.
In addition to helping organize voters, Duvall indicated that if the interest level on campus is sufficient, Students for Obama may rent a bus to travel to Pennsylvania for primary day, as they did with Ohio.
 And if the race for the Democratic nomination continues beyond April 22, so will Students for Obama, Duvall said. They plan to similarly target students for the other, later primaries. “It’s just a matter of trying to find U-M students from those places,” Duvall said.
March 24th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
It sounds like a smart move for Students for Obama to organize students at the University of Michigan to get absentee ballots from Pennsylvania. I wonder if the Hillary campaign has caught on to trying this tactic as well.
I’m excited to hear that first time voters are registering. The question I have though, is it possible that some of those students voted in the Michigan primary as an undecided or put in ‘Obama’ on the ‘write-in’ line and now are reregistering in Pennsyvania figuring that their Michgan vote didn’t count?
Students at the University of Washington were able to register to vote just before the primary caucus here in Washington. Or so I was told. Since students often have two addresses isn’t it fairly easy for them to participate in voter fraud?
What determines a student’s legal voting address? It might be hard to track someone down who actually voted in two different states.
March 24th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
As a lifelong resident of MN I am amazed at all the problems and snafus that so many voting jurisdictions have. Some problems occur year after year in the same locales. I suggest that voting officials study and ask questions of MN officials on how to conduct a seamless election. We do so election after election. We have had same day registration for over 30 years with very minimal violations or controversies. As for students voting in 2 different jurisdictions,technology down the road will preclude that from occurring. In the meantime, an example being made of someone committing voter fraud will serve as a strong deterrent not to do so. That does and has worked the very few times prosecutions mave occurred.
March 25th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
I am also surprised at this–students voting absentee in their home districts–since Andrew’s blog entry indicated that they voted in the area of the colleges. Yes, do they get to vote in both places?