Second voting hub opens on University of Michigan campus to boost young voter turnout
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (CBS DETROIT) — On Monday, a new voting hub opened at the University of Michigan's Duderstadt Center.
The North Campus location is the second location to open at U of M, following the opening of the Central Campus voting hub at the University of Michigan Museum of Art in September.
The initiative is a partnership between the university and the Ann Arbor City Clerk's Office to make voting more accessible to students, many of whom are first-time voters.
Professors Hannah Smotrich and Stephanie Rowden are co-leads of the Creative Campus Voting Project and were central to the opening of the satellite offices.
"All the work that we do as part of the Creative Campus Voting Project is around thinking about how this experience with voting can be welcoming, clear, trustworthy, and even delightful," said Rowden.
"Student voters are essentially new voters, and they have a lot of – truthfully – anxiety about doing the process correctly," said Smotrich. "And a ballot bears an unfortunate resemblance to a test. So, particularly on a college campus, students really want to do well. They care deeply about what they're doing, they understand the importance, but they don't feel fully confident that they understand how to do it."
Senior Kelly Zhang volunteers at the North Campus hub to help first-time voters.
"I'm an out of state student myself, so I think voting has always been like a really daunting task for me," said Zhang. "I signed up to do this because I wanted to just help other students out, kind of get them connected to the resources they need to participate in the election when they want to."
Students said they appreciate having the resource on campus.
"I come from a place where I wasn't really educated about how to vote or who to vote for, and I think getting the younger population to vote is extremely important in times like these and I just think it makes it really easy and accessible for us students to do," said student Nevaeh McVey.
"I think that it's really cool to have this on campus, because it's super informative, especially for people who aren't familiar with the process," said student Riya Saha.
Student Alex Partlin said he recalled seeing long lines to register to vote during the midterm elections.
"This is really great, allowing people to early vote without having to wait in those lines as well as just being convenient for people if they have classes on Tuesday and they won't be able to make it to the polls, so that they're able to vote in the election, because obviously, it's really important," said Partlin.
Meanwhile, the voting hub at the university art museum was bustling on Monday.
"This is the busiest day we've had so far this election season," said Lindsay Farb, campus voting hub site manager at the art museum. "We've got a huge line it's taking about 45 minutes or so to get through it."
She said she expects it to continue to get busier as election day nears.
The voting hubs are open from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.
