CountMore is a new Web site providing college students around the nation with a means of discovering where their votes will have the most impact come election time. While comparing home states with school states, the site will tell students where their vote will "count more."
In 1979, a Supreme Court ruling stated that college students had the right to vote either at home or in the town where they went to school. Around Virginia Tech, there have been several representatives from the Democratic and Republican parties encouraging students to vote here, rather than requesting an absentee ballot from their home town or state.
The actual CountMore Web site was developed by Front Seat, a civic software company based in Washington. Matt Lerner, Front Seat's chief technology officer who was previously employed by Microsoft for five years, believes that every college student should vote while also understanding in which state their vote is more important.
"CountMore wants to get students out there, talking about voting and doing it where it matters most," Lerner said.
CountMore.org was a brainchild of Lerner's and was developed and up and running in less than a week. The project was launched on Sept. 19, following national attention that Lerner and his partner, Jesse Kocher, had received with other projects, such as Walk Score which rates the 'walkability' of a specific establishment. Specifically, CountMore hopes to encourage students to register to vote as well as engage in dialogue with other friends who may not be registered.
"The national voter turnout in 2004 was at 55 percent," Lerner said. "I think we're going to see students turn out in greater numbers because there's so much excitement around this election, and for many of them it is their first voting experience."
Kocher agrees with Lerner.
"It's more important for people to feel like their vote matters, especially when it's their first time," Kocher said. "College students have just gotten to be the age that they are allowed to vote, and that's a great time for them to step up and make a decision."
Virginia is especially important because of its status as a battleground state. No candidate has overwhelming support. In battleground states, votes count more because of the Electoral College; the 2000 election was decided by roughly 500 votes in Florida. That said, CountMore proposes that votes there may have not counted as much as they might have in another state.
Aleisha Jacobson also works with the developers of the CountMore Web site. She believes that everyone, not even just students, need to get out to vote and research where their votes might have more weight.
"I think that with the way the Electoral College works, unfortunately some places do have votes that count more," Jacobson said. "It's important to always be responsible when you register to vote, and make your own decision."
Recently in Virginia, there was a controversy over registering to vote in a different state than the one that you used to fill out scholarships and other applications for financial aid. The state issued two incorrect releases warning students of the consequences of registering to vote at school. These releases also stated that students could potentially no longer be claimed as dependents of their parent. CountMore hopes to alleviate the stress that this may cause for students who are registering in different states.
The deadline to register to vote in Virginia is Oct. 6. The deadline to order an absentee ballot is Oct. 28.
Leave a comment 6 Comments Write a letter to the editor
All letters to the editor must include a name, e-mail, daytime phone number and affiliation to Virginia Tech. Affiliation includes: year and major for students; position and department for faculty and staff; current city for alumni and parents.
Doesn't this just exemplify the problem with students registering at their temporary college residence? I guarantee that our country's founding fathers would have serious concerns about a class of citizens (here college students) having the ability to decide where to vote so that their vote "Counts More" than the ordinary tax paying citizen who's polling place is defined by their permanent residence. I'm all for every legal citizen having the right to vote, but it sure seems like an abuse of the law allowing some to have this floating home that allows them to influence politics in a location that they have no significant vested interest in. I think this whole issue needs a lot more serious legal review!
Reply to this Top
Well DK, until the electoral college is abolished and popular vote selects the President, this is a smart way to ensure political efficacy.
Reply to this Top
And the one big problem we will have if we go to a complete popular vote election is that a candidate could potentially campaign only in the biggest 10-15 metro areas and ignore the rest of the countrey, and still get enough votes to win just because of the way things are. Since metro areas lean left, it would make it nearly impossible for a right-leaning candidate to win since they would have to cover 97% of the land area in the US while their opponent could just jet around between a few cities constantly and win. Having college students register in temporary residences in order to thwart the election system definitely highlights the problems with the electoral college and loopholes in voter registration guidelines. Now that we've approached this level where voting is such a game of who can wrangle the system to their own benefit the most without breaking the law, our political system is doomed for failure. I hope the DNC and Obama like what they get, because they are the ones pushing this "change"...but amazingly enough no one questions the change message or bothers to ask if the change will be good or bad. We're all a bunch of idiots for buying his drivle without asking for some details.
Reply to this Top
To make every vote in every state politically relevant and equal in presidential elections, support the National Popular Vote bill. The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The National Popular Vote bill has been approved by 21 legislative chambers (one house in CO, AR, ME, NC, and WA, and two houses in MD, IL, HI, CA, MA, NJ, RI, and VT). It has been enacted into law in Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These states have 50 (19%) of the 270 electoral votes needed to bring this legislation into effect. see http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Reply to this Top
Under a national popular vote, every vote is equally important politically. There is nothing special about a vote cast in a big city. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties know that they must seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the state in order to win the state. A vote cast in a big city is no more valuable than a vote cast in a small town or rural area. Another way to look at this is that there are approximately 300 million Americans. The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities is only 19% of the population of the United States. Even if one makes the far-fetched assumption that a candidate won 100% of the votes in the nation’s top five cities, he would only have won 6% of the national vote.
Reply to this Top
Further evidence of the way a nationwide presidential campaign would be run comes from the way that national advertisers conduct nationwide sales campaigns. National advertisers seek out customers in small, medium, and large towns of every small, medium, and large state. National advertisers do not advertise only in big cities. Instead, they go after every single possible customer, regardless of where the customer is located. National advertisers do not write off Indiana or Illinois merely because their competitor has an 8% lead in sales in those states. And, a national advertiser with an 8%-edge over its competitor does not stop trying to make additional sales in Indiana or Illinois merely because they are in the lead.
Reply to this Top