User:ColumbiaVotes
History
Founded in October 2018, ColumbiaVotes seeks to be the concentrated body of all things voting rights on campus. Beginning with a small team of leaders from other student organizations, we put forward a strategy to register students to vote ahead of the 2018 Midterm Elections. We held several voter registration drives throughout October 2018, trained 35 volunteers from across all four of Columbia’s undergraduate schools and assisted over 300 students register to vote and request absentee ballots. At our voter registration tables, we provided all necessary supplies and provided relevant information about every state’s voting regulations, to make voter registration as easy as possible for the student.
Beyond our voter registration work, we seek to elevate the importance of civil rights advocacy on campus. We’ve hosted educational workshops about the history of voting rights in the United States, worked with Columbia administrators to reauthorize our campus for the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE), and collaborated with the Columbia Office of Government and Community Affairs to promote civic engagement and political awareness. In 2020, ColumbiaVotes partnered with our peer institutions to organize the Ivy League Democracy Challenge, a league-wide competition to encourage non-partisan civic engagement among students.
Thus, the mission of ColumbiaVotes is two-fold. First, we aim to increase voter registration and turnout on Columbia’s campus. Through our four committees, we seek to develop creative strategies to engage the student body and increase rates of participation. Additionally, we seek a cultural change at Columbia. For a University that prides itself on developing the next generation of civic leaders, political participation needs to be more comprehensively integrated into Columbia’s culture and academic programming. We hope to be the student organization dedicated to developing this campus culture.
Current Board
Easten Young - President Natalie Baer - Vice President Ana Maria Rodriguez - Treasurer Leah Goryachkovsky - Marketing Director Sadie Rochman - Outreach Director Maya Mitrasinovic - Logistics Director Devin Golla - Research Director Hanna Bloomquist - Programming Director Anusha Merchant - Membership Director Hannah Puelle - Digital Director
