For the past two and a half
months, students involved with MarylandPIRG at University of Maryland have dedicated a
great deal of their spare time to increasing youth voter turnout. Volunteers
registered 549 students to vote, and worked hard to turn them out to the polls
on Election Day. Together with coalition partners and receptive young people
across the country, these efforts comprised the largest midterm mobilization
effort in history!
Volunteers at the University of Maryland worked hard to talk to over 1500 of their peers about the election.
They held tables outside of the student union, spoke in classes and called registered voters to remind
them about the election. Maryland PIRG volunteers helped make over 250 contacts with
their peers on Election Day alone, gathering signatures on a large
banner that hung by their table on Election Day.
Volunteers with MarylandPIRG, the Student Government Association, and Maryland Votes passed out candy and cookies to students waiting in line to vote, as well as passed around the banner for them to sign as a pledge that they would vote. As a direct
result of these students’ hard work, over 450 voters cast their ballots in this
2006 midterm election; this number is up from less than 150 in the 2002 midterm
election.
