Dive Summary:
- With just over a month until the election, colleges and get-out-the-vote campaigns are doubling their efforts in a last-minute drive to help students who want to register--especially in states like Pennsylvania, where contentious voter ID laws have made registration all the more confusing.
- Voter ID laws were struck down in Florida and Texas when courts ruled that they disenfranchised minority voters, but in states like Pennsylvania, similar laws are still under review.
- The Higher Education Reauthorization Act requires campuses to make an effort to help students get registered to vote, but even without that, many colleges consider civic engagement to be one of their responsibilities to students.
From the article:
Drexel University hasn't even started classes yet -- that won't happen until Monday. Which will give Daniel J. Dougherty, executive director of Drexel's Lindy Center for Civil Engagement, precisely 10 days to help all the students who want to qualify to meet Pennsylvania's Oct. 2 deadline for voter registration for the November election. And, thanks to the indecision of Pennsylvania courts, the state's controversial voter identification law is still uncertain - and could be all the way through the Oct. 2 deadline, 35 days before the election. ...