Organizations blame each other
for registration problems
By Kelly Lucas
Campus
Editor
A problem that cost several
Purdue students their right to vote in this year's election stemmed
from either the campus organizations that registered those students
to vote or the Tippecanoe County Voter Registration Office; however,
neither group is accepting fault.
The Tippecanoe County Voter
Registration Office claims every student who submitted a voter registration
form by the Oct. 10 deadline was registered; however, several student
organizations say they submitted all forms obtained through voter registration
drives, but some students still weren't registered.
Linda Phillips, Republican
member of the Voter Registration Office, said the office received numerous
phone calls from Purdue students saying they registered to vote on campus
but had never received their voter registration cards.
Phillips said she believes
the student organizations on campus failed to turn in the voter registration
forms by the Oct. 10 deadline.
"We did experience problems
starting about 10 days before elections when we received a number of
calls from students that had registered in Stewart Center," she said.
"We did not get those forms, so whoever organized that drive did not
turn those in. We estimate that that affected approximately 100 students.
However, organizations such
as the College Republicans, College Democrats, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity
and the Liberal Arts Student Council that registered Purdue students,
all say they turned in the forms on time.
Eugene Johnson, president
of Alpha Phi Alpha, said he hand delivered the approximate 250 voter
registration forms that he and his organization obtained to the voter
registration office, including his own voter registration form. Johnson,
however, never received his voter registration card.
"I turned in each and every
form," said Johnson. "I even filled out one myself, and they said they
did not have record of it."
Johnson said he turned in
all forms at the end of September and even requested that the office
type a letter on behalf of the voter registration office to confirm
his organization completed the service. Johnson never received the letter
either.
"It's just sad that students
are out there trying to get other students to vote and raise awareness
of political issues and these people who are responsible for processing
these forms are not fulfilling their obligation. It makes people wonder
why bother to vote?" he said.
Johnson, who started to suspect
something was wrong when he didn't receive his voter registration card
after his roommate had, called the office in mid-October to express
his concern. The woman at the office simply said it wasn't processed
yet.
Johnson, thinking his form
would have been processed, called the office the day before voting to
find out where he should vote only to be told he wasn't registered.
"It makes me upset because
we took the initiative and the time to put together the voter drive
and to get students signed up so that we could make a difference. I
took my personal time to hand deliver over 250 forms and people didn't
get registered. That demonstrates the inefficiency in this county,"
said Johnson.
Rachel Wehrspann, president
of the Liberal Arts Student Council, said a similar situation happened
within her organization. The organization turned in approximately 300
voter registration forms; some students were registered. Some were not.
"From what we're hearing,
it's a small number of cases. Either something happened in the (voter
registration) office or they didn't fill them out correctly," she said.
"We had a feeling it was more than they had handled before … they
had a lot of requests for registration."
Shamarrah Pates, a sophomore
in the School of Liberal Arts, who registered on campus said she was
outraged. "I feel like a hypocrite telling people to vote and Election
Day comes and I can't even vote."
Phillips said the best way
to avoid a situation such as this is to simply register yourself, in
person. "When you register on campus, you are at the mercy of the person
running the drive."
Phillips said she advises
students to register in person at the Courthouse. "That's the safest
way to go," she said.
She said that if a student
has not received a voter registration card within a week of registering,
the student should call or visit the office to make sure there are no
problems with the form.
Phillips said every form
was processed in a timely manner, even though the office received more
than 3,000 forms before the last day to register.
According to Phillips, the
office had all forms in by Oct. 18. "We spent a lot of time just verifying
information and making sure everything was correct," she said. "We had
some problems but by the time we printed the list, we only had six forms
we had problems with, but we called those voters."
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