By: Cole Young, Lion’s Eye Staff cry5060@psu.edu

We’re closing in on November 6, which is Election Day this year. For many at Penn State Brandywine it will be their first opportunity to cast their vote. While it isn’t a presidential election, these elections are still highly important. The position of Pennsylvania governor is up for grabs, as well as seats in Congress. Many local offices are also going to be contested this November.

The 2018 elections will still have a huge impact on our government, and you can have your say. To get to know more about how Brandywine helps students learn about the voting process, I talked to the Center of Ethics and Civic Engagement Director, Vippy Yee.

“Part of what we’ve been doing is collaborating with other groups on campus. For example, for Constitution Day I worked very closely with the library. We had a national voter registration drive that day as well as recorded students on camera voicing what issues are important to them. Those videos are going to be turned into PSAs and distributed around campus on all the different screens leading up to the election.”

This semester the Center of Ethics and Civic Engagement has been working diligently to prepare students for the election.

“We’ve had seven voter registrations this semester. I’ve partnered with the Library, Orchard Hall and the Civic and Community Engagement Club. We had two drives in Orchard Hall, as well as a few in the Student Union Building.”

Unfortunately, for those who still need to register, the October 9 deadline has passed. However, it seems that many students have already registered to vote.

“What was really enlightening about the process was that a lot of students are already signed up. We tried to engage as many students as we could and often we found that they had already signed up. In those cases we directed students to a website where they could check their registration and make sure their voter registration was active, had the right information and that they’d definitely be able to vote. There were instances of students whose registration was not active in the way they thought it would be. In those cases we took those students and had them register immediately.”

Even though many students had already registered, the drives were still very successful.

“Of the brand new registrations, those who said they’d never registered before and would like to now, I would say we registered about 70 students.”

There still are more things to do after getting students registered. Yee explained,

“The first step was getting students registered, whether that was through registration drives, Constitution Day or National Voter Registration Day. Now we’re into our voter education phase. A lot of students explained that they didn’t know who to vote for or that they didn’t what we’re talking about. These elections are called the midterm elections which means that all 435 seats in the U.S House of Representatives are up for grabs. That means whether a student is from Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey or anywhere else in the U.S they have a member of congress they’re going to be voting on. In Pennsylvania there’s the governor’s race, a senate race, and state legislature races. The second phase is helping students understand what are their resources to learn more about candidates.”

Now Brandywine students may be wondering where they can go to vote and the answer is closer than you think.

“If you’ve registered with this address your voting location is actually across the street from the Main Building at the Easter Seals school.”

Now if you’re on the fence about voting, maybe this incentive will help.

“We are part of the Big Ten Challenge which is a competition to see which Big Ten school can get the most students to get registered and then go out and vote. Penn State does very well, but we really do want to win this contest. I would hope you’re voting, because of your civic duty, but there’s also Penn State pride. We can’t let Michigan beat us.”

Voting is a very important thing in our country, and we at the Lion’s Eye hope to see you at the polls November 6!