August
27, 2004
MHC
Students Urge Women to Vote
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Although
women in the United States won the right to vote in 1920, they
remain woefully underrepresented in government. To cite only
a handful of disheartening statistics, the United States ranks
fifty-seventh internationally in women’s political leadership,
behind Slovakia and Burundi. Of the nearly 12,000 people to serve
in Congress since its founding, only 215 have been women. In
the 2000 election, more than half of women ages 18-34 did not
vote—about
15 million people, 11 million of whom were not even registered
to vote.
Three Mount Holyoke students seeking to remedy this problem—Heather Fraser ’06,
Andrea Brown ’06, and Dalisa Gomez ’06—attended a Go Vote training
session in New York City June 17–18. Martha Ackmann, senior lecturer in
women’s studies, also attended the session. The training was sponsored
by Vote, Run, Lead, a nationwide, nonpartisan program of the White House Project
designed to mobilize women’s political power and close the leadership gap
in this country. Students from
27 institutions participated.
“The weekend was a wonderful event, not only to demonstrate the urgent
need for women to vote, but also to convey how the media can promote issues of
citizenship,” said Ackmann.
Go Vote is jointly sponsored by the New York Times, the Women’s College
Coalition, and the White House Project. The program included lectures explaining
how and why women’s votes matter and hands-on workshops that trained students
to conduct voter registration drives on campus and in local communities and to
get out the vote on Election Day.
For those in the Mount Holyoke community interested in voter registration, the
Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts, the Office of Student Programs,
and The Network are cosponsoring a student voter registration drive September
12 during the Back to School Carnival on Skinner Green from 1 to 5 pm. There
will be tables with Massachusetts registration forms and information about polling
places. For out-of-state voters, there will be information about absentee ballots
and deadlines for each state. Folksinger Doria Roberts will perform at 7:30 pm.
“We put this drive together as a kickoff to the Weissman Center fall series
on the presidential election. We want to provide a space for the Mount Holyoke
community to get informed about election issues. Most importantly, we hope to
help students confront the act of voting as an absolutely necessary aspect of
informed and constructive leadership,” said Abby Ferguson ’03, assistant
director of the Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts.
For more information, contact Abby Ferguson at aferguso@mtholyoke.edu.
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