Register to Vote! Social Work Forum Makes a Campus Effort

This year the Social Work Forum, an organization of the social work program at Pacific Union College, is renewing its efforts to encourage students to vote — and help them get registered and to the polls.  Some are predicting increased voting of "youth voters," and the Forum wants to make that a reality at least on our campus.

In the all-school colloquy program on October 2, president Richard Osborn spoke about voting, the history both of Constitutional amendments affecting voting rights and the Adventist position on voting, and some guidelines he strives to use in his voting decisions. Osborn then introduced social work professor Monte Butler and student Alisa Jacobo, who detailed the Forum's movement to encourage voting. When talking about the program's mission, Butler said, "For many of us in the social work program, you can hardly read Christ's message to us without saying we're called to make this world a better place." In voting, he added, "We need to have influence on who gets elected."

As they have in past years, the Forum this year set up a voter registration booth at the beginning of the new school year. "We had lots of people come by and say, 'I don't want to vote… I'm not educated about the candidates." The goal, she added, is not to try to convince them who to vote for, but give them the resources to make a decision. The Forum had a table following the all-school colloquy program, giving people the opportunity to register to vote for the first time in this county or get absentee ballots for voting in their home county. On voting day, the Forum will also run a shuttle from the campus to the Angwin polling location.

Campus Voting
Voters registered in other counties – vote via vote-by-mail ballot.

You can find the application for a vote-by-mail ballot online (for California, www.sos.ca.gov/elections/). Applications must be  mailed to your county elections office, submitted no later than the seventh day prior to the election.

Voters who wish to vote in Napa County – Register to vote by filling out and mailing (to your county elections office) the registration form by October 20, 2008. The form is available online (for California, www.sos.ca.gov/elections/) or through the PUC Social Work Forum, county elections office, library, or U.S. Post Office.