Students’ voices heard in 2008 election

Published: Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Millions of Americans voted in the 2008 general election, and a few thousand of those votes included USU students.

Estimating exactly how many students voted is a tricky matter, said Jackson Olsen, executive vice president of ASUSU.

“When student’s vote they don’t check a box that says ‘student,’ so the only thing we can do is look at the precincts with the highest student population and guess,” Olsen said.

The five precincts in Logan with the highest student population are 12, 14, 15, 18 and 23, Olsen said.

According to the Cache County Clerks office, Precinct 18, the largest of the five, had 1,778 registered voters and 911 voted. Precinct 14 saw the highest registered voter percentage turnout, with 60.02 percent of registered voters showing up to the polls. The lowest percentage turnout of the five was seen in precinct 15, with 44.33 percent.

“We registered almost 5,000 people to vote and in addition to that, a lot of the people on campus didn’t register to vote because they were already registered,” Olsen said. “So my estimation is that we have over 10,000 registered voters on campus, and some of those won’t be included in that estimate because of absentee ballots. Also, you have to consider the fact that many students don’t even live near campus. I myself live all the way out on the west side.”

Olsen said he wasn’t sure if early voters were included in the turnout statistics.

“I had about close to 3,000 people, students and faculty, vote on campus early, so coming up with an estimation is a tricky game,” Olsen said.

Despite the struggle to arrive at a completely correct student voter figure, Olsen said the turnout was more than he would have ever expected.

“The Cache Country clerk who I worked with commented on how their office was much busier than usual, so I think people really got involved with the election this year,” Olsen said.

Olsen said he was expecting a lower turnout for the amount of work put into Election Day efforts, and was overwhelmed at the response that the student body gave.

“We were totally surprised and totally happy with how involved the students got, not just registering to vote, but voting, early voting and the election night party. All of these were huge successes and we weren’t prepared for that, but we were pleasantly surprised,” Olsen said.