MHC STUDENTS HELP MOBILIZE
WOMEN’S POLITICAL POWER

September 12 voter registration drive launches fall Weissman Center series on presidential election

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. – Although women in the United States won the right to vote 84 years ago this week, 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 of Freeport, Maine; Andrea Brown '06 of New York, N.Y.; and Dalisa Gomez '06 of New York, N.Y.—attended a "Go Vote" training session in New York City June 17–18. Martha Ackmann, senior lecturer in women's studies at Mount Holyoke, 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.

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," said Abby Ferguson, assistant director of the Weissman Center for Leadership and the Liberal Arts. "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.”

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