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New campus committee aims to activate voters

Millennials are notorious for not showing up in elections, but universities across the nation are making efforts to combat the young generation’s absence in the polls. For instance, in 2016, Northwestern University saw over a 15 percent increase in the number of students registered to vote. This means 91 percent of their student population had the opportunity to vote during the November 2016 election, according to Northwestern’s website.

While such data isn’t available at Bradley, The Hilltop’s new Civic Engagement Committee will be working with Northwestern and other universities alike in hopes of registering 2,000 Bradley students to vote by the November 2018 election.

But out of that 91 percent of Northwestern students, still only 64 percent of those registered voters actually used their vote.

How will Bradley try to avoid this fallout? According to Brad McMillan, leader of the committee and Executive Director of the Institute for Principled Leadership in Public Service, the committee is composed of students and staff, and they hope to help students realize their vote matters.

“[We want students to] connect the dots between them being engaged civically and recognizing that [voting] does impact the issues that they care about,” McMillan said.

McMillan said voting is important for many students, because sometimes results impact them directly, as with MAP grants.

“The Monetary Assistance Program (MAP) dollars impacts 1,200 Bradley students this year,” McMillan said. “The state, by the narrowest of margins, passed a state budget that released that money to Bradley students.”

McMillan also said some of the recent tax bill proposals weren’t going to allow students to deduct interest on student loans while also making graduate assistantships taxable income.

The committee wants to make both registering to vote and being informed to vote as easy as possible. McMillan said the committee will be looking at “best practices and models that have worked on other college campuses and looking at trying to implement those same strategies.” To start, the committee will be meeting with leaders from Illinois PIRG next week, an organization that led the charge on the new voter registration law that Illinois passed last year.

McMillan said he has also looked at Northwestern, which encourages their students on move-in day to stop by the voter registration table.

Prospective committee member and senior political science and public relations double major Katie Goldsmith said a reason students don’t vote is because they do not know how to register.

“I know a lot of students complained that it was hard to register to vote,” Goldsmith said. “They didn’t know the process, so I think it’s really beneficial if Bradley plays a role in registering.”

The committee is popular among students so far. Of those looking to join is junior marketing and international business double major Isabella Heidenreich.

“It’s a right, but it’s a privilege to pick who is leading us,” Heidenreich said. “Technically [the government] does work for us, and I think that not enough people are informed on the vote or even the candidates.”

The committee will kick-start their campaign this upcoming week on Wednesday, according to McMillan.

“We welcome all students that have an interest in joining the committee and participating in this effort to do so,” McMillan said.

Any interested students should contact McMillan directly by emailing bmcmillan@bradley.edu.

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