EKU students get practice before going to the polls

Secretary of State Trey Grayson is making sure that college students realize the importance of voting and participating in the May primary election.

He has initiated an effort to host trials at several Kentucky universities, including the one conducted Monday at Eastern Kentucky University.

Other mock elections will take place over the next two weeks at Western Kentucky University, Murray State University, the University of Kentucky, the University of Louisville and Northern Kentucky University.

The votes cast on the electronic E-Slate voting machines in the mock election do not actually count toward the May votes. In addition, the mock election consisted only of gubernatorial candidates.

EKU’s Center for Kentucky History and Politics sponsored the event that is part of Grayson’s Civic Literacy Initiative in Kentucky, and was developed as a way to restore civic engagement among young people.

Student volunteers and a staff member for the Office of the Secretary of State were present Monday to demonstrate the machine, help first-time voters register in their home precincts and answer questions about absentee voting.

The Civic Literacy Initiative of Kentucky is Grayson’s multi-year effort that will determine a strategy for enhancing long-term civic engagement and civic literacy within the state. As part of that effort, he released a report, “Rediscovering Democracy: An Agenda for Action,” that calls upon the state to take tangible steps to increase civic literacy.

The report includes recommendations that developed from the work of the Kentucky Working Group on Civic Literacy and the Civic Literacy Initiative of Kentucky.

The report focuses on bringing forth increased technology to continue engaging students in the political process.

“Young people often feel that their opinions don’t matter or that their vote does not really count, but there are more than 100,000 18-24-year-olds enrolled in Kentucky colleges and universities,” Grayson said. “Imagine the collective impact they could have on an election if they all decided to cast a ballot.”

All of Kentucky’s public universities were invited to conduct similar elections, said Les Fugate, director of communications for Grayson.

For this year, the purpose of the mock elections was to prepare students to vote before leaving campus for summer break.
“Our goal is to get them all before the registration deadline,” Fugate said.

April 24 is the registration deadline for the May 22 primary.