As candidates and campaigners continue to gear up for fall elections, lawyers and state and local law clerks will hit campus next week to lend support for at a voter registration drive at Dartmouth.
Five students currently working or volunteering for New Hampshire Democratic Party candidates -- Ben Correa '04, Josh Marcuse '04, Phil Peisch '04, Rebecca Perkins '04 and Josh Stern '04 -- began planning for the registration push around three weeks ago.
Their efforts came about in part as a response to an overburdening of Hanover's local government during "same day registration programs," which for 2000's federal elections brought over 1,000 Dartmouth students to beleagured Hanover town officials on election day.
That turnout created what Marcuse, who is working for the New Hampshire Democratic Party's campaign office in Lebanon, called a "logistical and clerical nightmare" for local offices. Next week's drive will aim to take "a big chunk out of same day registrations," Marcuse said.
The event, which Marcuse hopes will attract 100 students, will also serve as a "dry run" for similar voter registration drives at other state campuses such as the University of New Hampshire, according to Correa, who is working as an intern at N.H. Governor and Democratic Candidate Jeanne Shaheen.
One function of the clerks and lawyers on hand next week will be to answer questions and dispense advice to students regarding any potential complications of simultaneously holding voter registration in multiple states.
While persons can actually vote in only one state for each election period, Marcuse said it is legal and "very standard practice," to register in more than one state at a time.
However, one prickly issue remains for some students receiving state scholarships: states carry differing regulations on conditions of eligibility.
Correa clarified that "if there's any doubt" that a student may jeopardize his or her scholarship by registering in New Hampshire, organizers will discourage such persons from doing so.
Despite the fact that all five organizing students work for Democrats, both Marcuse and Correa said that the character of the voting registration drive would remain non-partisan.
The clerks and lawyers arriving on campus do not represent any political party, and all students will be urged to come out and register.
"We're not screening students," Correa said, though noting that if past Democratic inclinations on campus -- The Dartmouth's Oct. 2000 presidential race poll showed over 70 percent of students favoring either Gore or Nader -- continue, "that works for us."
Correa and Marcuse expressed optimism at the potential impact of a strong turnout from Dartmouth students, pointing to the narrow polling numbers between Shaheen and Republican challenger John Sununu and tight past races, such as the close finish between Bush and Gore in New Hampshire in the fall of 2000.
"A couple thousand students could really be decisive," Correa said.
In the past, according to Marcuse, there has been a "relatively low turnout" from Dartmouth students in state and local elections, because students often don't view themselves as particularly invested in the outcome.
Marcuse countered that point by arguing that the New Hampshire senate race is "the most exciting election in the country" and has national implications, as the Senate is currently composed of 50 Democrats, 49 Republicans and 1independent.
The precise date of the drive, originally scheduled for Aug. 6, remains uncertain because of personnel turnover in the New Hampshire clerks' office.