- By Holden Reynolds, SUNY Oswego
Oswego County News Now
TOWN OF OSWEGO — Planning for the presidential election, Vote Oswego has been busy on SUNY Oswego’s campus.
Students and staff who are part of Vote Oswego, a political science course that runs for the fall semester, have been hard at work trying to get students to register to vote.
“It’s a full semester class where we’re running all kinds of events. Since the semester started, I’ve been helping get people registered to vote and request their absentee ballots, and then (worked) an event on campus where students could return their ballots and get them sent out,” said James Rodriguez-Medina, 20, a junior and student in the Vote Oswego course.
Nineteen students are earning three credits each for participating in this course, which takes a non-partisan approach to getting students involved in the electoral process.
Professor Allison Rank created the course two presidents ago and continues to teach students how to set campaign goals, recruit and train volunteers, and incorporate political science research in the process.
Wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with the words “VOTE OSWEGO,” students staff tables around campus and visit other classes to encourage their peers to register and then actually vote.
“After doing Vote Oswego, I feel a great sense of gratification with the work I did,” Rodriguez-Medina said. “Not only has this been the most unique class I’ve taken, but I was able to help students across campus with any voter questions and help get them participating in the upcoming presidential election.”
Rodriguez-Medina said he had many goals coming into the class, and he was able to achieve all of them.
“My goal was to learn something new. I had never worked on a campaign like this, and the whole class is run like a traditional campaign,” he said. “And doing this for nearly the past three months, I’ve learned a lot of skills like how to truly work your feet and how to communicate more effectively. (That’s) something that I wouldn’t have learned if we were sitting writing different papers or quizzes in a normal class setting.”
Charlotte Faulkner and Caleb Diamond, both juniors at SUNY Oswego, faced one challenge this fall. As Long Island residents, they couldn’t easily return home to vote in person.
“Vote Oswego made the process so easy for us,” Faulkner said. “They walked through how to fill out an absentee ballot, helped us submit them, and made sure we were able to vote since we don’t live in Oswego.”
Diamond said that Vote Oswego saved them from missing their first election.
“We didn’t realize how complicated it could be to vote from a different part of New York.” Diamond said. “It’s really cool that the campus provides a program like this for students.”
