Members of the UVM Civic Engagement Program presented their work about increasing UVM’s voter turnout at an Oct. 1 SGA meeting.
Rinzin Sonam, UVM coordinator for Civic Engagement, and Program Assistant Zorianna Petrosyan, a junior, spoke about the program’s online resources available to students, signage to raise awareness of voting and upcoming informational events.
“The action of voting and being civically engaged is super important,” Petrosyan said. “You’re thinking about the influence you have on your community, and thinking about the needs of others.”
Sonam led a demonstration of TurboVote, an online resource that she said helps students register to vote, check their voter registration and request a mail-in ballot.
Sonam said that Civic Engagement has been working with Student Life’s marketing team to create a three-part series of animated videos about voter education.
As part of their efforts, Civic Engagement made table tents with a QR code to help students make a voting plan and distributed them in residence halls and the Davis Center, Sonam said.
Sonam said the Civic Engagement Program has planned a social media push to spread awareness about National Voter Education Week from October 7 to 11. They will also host events encouraging voting throughout the month of October, she said.
In her presentation, Petrosyan said that Student Life has been working with the department of political science to host election-related events, including faculty panels.
“Civic Engagement has a lot of voter education, how to get registered and stuff like that,” Petrosyan said. “And then political science has been really great with, sort of, the political science side of it, and unpacking what certain things mean.”
Petrosyan said the program is consistently active in local elections, particularly Town Meeting Day, but has intensified its voter education efforts this semester because of the upcoming presidential election.
SGA Speaker Kennedy Connors, a sophomore, said she was impressed by their presentation and underscored the importance of voting.
“I’m happy to see that Civic Engagement also is seeing the importance of this time of this election, and they’re encouraging students to do the same,” she said.
