Many believe that students are not as involved in doing their civic duty as other demographic groups, but that many feel it is time for a change.
That's because Tuesday, Sept. 22 is National Voter Registration Day, a day that celebrates democracy across America and encourages people to register to vote. In order to ensure that as many USC students as possible register to vote, numerous student political organizations and clubs will on Greene St. from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. to help with the registration process.
A coalition of organizations such as the Feminist Collective, Gamecocks for Peaceand the College Democrats at USC have all devoted their time and involvement to work together to register the maximum amount of students possible during the allotted time.
Third-year sociology and Russian major Cory Alpert has organized the registration fair with the help of over 20 organizations and partnerships with the South Carolina Democratic Party and the South Carolina Republican Party. Alpert stated that the idea for the fair came from a conversation about the amount of students who don’t vote.
“There are two or three times as many students as people that voted in the last City Council election and that’s something that we wanted to change," Alpert said. "We really wanted to make sure that students were able to have their voices heard and that we were able to do that in a way that got as many students as possible.”
Alpert stated that the size of the registration fair has grown largely in the past few weeks and he hopes this will help with student turnout.
“Congressman Jim Clyburn and (University) President Pastides both said that they will be in attendance as well as both political parties; they started advertising for us on their social media pages,” Alpert said. “We’re growing exponentially as we go.”
While Alpert and the organizations don’t have a set goal of the amount of students registered for the day they want as many students as possible to register and encourage all students to come out.