Sen. John Kerry's surprise victory in the Iowa caucus has provided an already engaging primary season with an extra jolt. But opinions are mixed as to whether or not the added buzz surrounding the upcoming New Hampshire primary will lead to a particularly high College voting turnout.
Hanover Town Clerk Sallie Johnson said she could not tell if more students would head for the polls, though she noted that "students have been coming in on a regular basis" to the Hanover town offices to register.
Additionally, over 200 students registered to vote in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary at a get-out-the-vote event in Collis Center last week, Johnson said.
Johnson indicated that the town of Hanover does not explicitly track Dartmouth turnout in its voting precinct.
The only method that the office can use to gauge the student vote is by checking for Hinman Box addresses on the lists of new registered voters that the office compiles both at primary day registration and in advance, according to Supervisor of the Checklist Lee Udy.
Johnson added that in 2000, 396 new voters registered on the day of the New Hampshire primaries. Many were likely Dartmouth students.
In the 2000 general election, 852 out of the 870 newly registered voters had Hinman Box addresses.
Coordinator of Student and Public Programs at the Rockefeller Center Karen Liot '00 said that there was a good chance more students than usual will vote in the New Hampshire primary this year.
"There is a perception that it is more exciting to be involved in the New Hampshire presidential primary," Liot said.
Liot also said that the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars "have made students more inclined to be engaged with the rest of the country and the rest of the world," and therefore vote.
However, Liot warned that making the decision to vote in New Hampshire may not be in the best interest of every Dartmouth student.
Students are drawn towards voting in New Hampshire, according to Liot, because of the buzz surrounding its early primary.
In midst of the hype, students often overlook the fact that registering in New Hampshire complicates their ability to vote in local and state elections in their home states, if they still want to do so, Liot said.
Unless there is a enormously high number of new student registrations, Dartmouth will continue its trend of having more students vote in the general election than to the primary poll.
To many, including Liot, this statistic seems skewed because of the spike in political activism on campus that takes place during the primary season.
From her experience as a student at Dartmouth, Liot said that campaign mobilization on campus peaked during the New Hampshire during the 2000 primary season as many students rallied around Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
Once the general election season began, student activism on campus was rather tame, Liot said, because both Bradley and McCain were out of the race.
Nonetheless, 852 new College voters registered for to vote for the general election, compared to less than 400 for the primary.
Alisha Levine '07 offered a take on why less students turn out for the primaries.
"Some people only think in terms of either voting for the Democrat or the Republican," Levine said. "They'd rather just wait an see and then vote for that candidate in the larger election."
A wide variety of campus groups are still urging students to register to vote in the Jan. 27 primary.
Some, including the Young Democrats, are trying to dispel what they say is the myth that students will lose their driver's licenses if they register to vote in New Hampshire.
