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with the mission of mobilizing and educating notre dame voters. The have sponsored a number of events this past semester in preparation for the election, and they prepared a voting guide for students. nd votes participates in and utilizes the work of the national study of Learning voting and engagement (nsLve), an initiative of the institute for democracy and higher education (idhe) at Tufts University’s Jonathan m. Tisch college of civic Life, a research center focused on college students’ participation in democracy.
The nsLve created a report on student voting rates at notre dame in the 2016 election, and concluded a 54% voting rate among students at notre dame. both marotta and senior rachel sabnani, who is also a co-chair of nd votes, expect a larger turnout among students this election.
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sabnani said their organization saw an uptick in interest in their work this year, starting back in the summer.
“We have really exponentially grown,” she said. nd votes’s task force is made up of student dorm representatives and representatives of various political and non-partisan ]clubs and organizations on campus.
“our task force has doubled and tripled in size,” sabnani said. additionally, the club has been contacted by a number of other nd organizations as well such as academic departments, the athletics department and even personally by muffet mcGraw. sabnani said they were also contacted by national organizations with similar missions as nd votes such as democracy Works and voting counts. sabnani attributed the increased interest in nd votes to a few factors, one being the club’s neutral position.
“i think the country became more partisan and divided in the past few years, [so] people are drawn to our nonpartisanship,” she said. she also noted college students this year were in high school during the last election. she said since then, they have noticed how the government has affected their families and lives.
“i think a lot of new young people are forming a political conscious,” she said. marotta said almost everyone they have asked are registered to vote, which he believes is a result of the 2020 election’s heightened polarization. saint mary’s junior catherine o’neil cast her ballot through the mail, although she said she had a difficult experience. o’neil, originally from illinois, initially requested a ballot from her home county to be sent to her school address.
“it was my first time voting in a presidential election,” she said. after weeks of waiting, o’neil called the county clerk’s office and discovered her ballot had instead been sent to south and those states that had that any changes to the voting system would then have to go through the Justice department.
“That was something that led to the flower again of voter participation, but also, the rebirth said. “You see an astronomical leap in the number of black political officials.”
Through his work in the addressed some of the systemic racial measures that have taken place in the U.s.
“if you have huge numbers of black people in a district or in an you come up with ways in which through the process called gerrymandering, you minimize that district lines in such a way that you encapsulate black people into just one district or crack and spread them out over a number of districts. either way, you really kind of minimize the amount her permanent home address. o’neil then requested a new ballot, but also had to mark the first ballot as “spoiled” for her new one to be counted. o’neil said she had trouble finding information on what do do in her situation and several of her friends from her hometown experienced a similar problem. she is still worried if her new ballot will be counted in time.
“is my vote even going to be counted at this point?” she said. o’neil said she is passionate about making sure her vote was accounted for especially after the events of this past year.
“it’s a big year for the president, it’s a big year for the house,” she said. “it’s really important to make sure that the people that are in charge are people who are willing to speak for the people instead of just themselves or their donors.” margaret mcGreevy, a notre dame junior, was able to vote in-person a few weeks ago in south bend. “i’m local so it was written there, if you had a stateissues license to be able to carry a gun… that was fine. if you had a University of Texas state acceptable.” cerns of voter fraud in discussing photo id laws.
“These unnecessary photo id laws, supposedly, it is to try to protect the voting system form in-person voter fraud. brennan center has done a study and said that you’re more likely to be hit by lightning than cast an in-person fraudulent vote.” say voter fraud doesn’t exist, but rather, the events are very isolated and these measures are drastic, given the “negative collateral impacts of these measures.” easier for me to vote in-person. i wanted to be sure my vote would be counted,” she said. mcGreevy and two of her friends went to vote early in the morning one Friday. she said the process of voting took about an hour and fifteen minutes, as there was a long line, and then got breakfast together afterwards. “We kinda made like a half day of it,” she joked. mcGreevy and her friends, after voting, saw former south bend mayor and former democratic presidential candidate Pete buttigieg in line. “he was just standing in line along with everyone else,” she said. “it was kinda cool to see a politician going through the voting process just like anyone else.”
The three friends were then able to take a socially-distanced picture with buttigieg. “i think voting is so important,” mcGreevy said. “i felt very empowered to go in-person and very lucky.”
Contact Isabella Volmert at
Lecture
conTinUed From PaGe 1
“in the post-civil War era, you had a flowering of black voter participation, and frankly, the creation of black political power that threatened the status quo, particularly in the south and measures were then put in place to disenfranchise newly freed people,” holder said. “Poll taxes, literacy tests, the use of violence, to make sure that people did not register and then did not vote.” holder described how the civil rights acts of the 1960s combatted these obstacles.
“The [1965] voting rights act is justifiability called the ‘crown jewel of the civil rights movement.’ it essentially put under federal examination the old a history of discrimination,” holder said. holder continued to explain
of black political power,” holder
redistricting committee, holder
area in the south, or in the north, power,” holder said. “You draw of power that african american communities should have.”
While partisan gerrymandering as existed for decades, holder said racial gerrymandering has gained more traction in recent years.
“as african americans become more closely identified with the democratic Party, there is kind of an overlap between partisan gerrymandering and racial gerrymandering,” holder said. “There are sometimes, and very often, a part of the same thing.” durham asked for holder’s opinion on the supreme court’s recent decision that states that they will no longer be addressing partisan gerrymandering cases.
“i think that’s an awful decision,” holder said. “Why do the federal courts exist, but to somehow grapple and resolve these issues? i think that the notion that gerrymandering has been with us almost as long as we have been a republic doesn’t mean it is something that we should accept, being partisan or racial gerrymanders.” holder said he thought the court’s decision “really turns its back on protecting our democracy.”
The discussion continued to address voter suppression that may appear neutral, but may impact more significantly marginalized communities, such as the requirement of a photo id.
“african americans and hispanic americans don’t have driver’s licenses to the extent that their white counterparts do. but it even goes a little beyond that,” holder said. “ in Texas, if you look at the way the law was issued photo id, that was not holder also addressed con-
holder said that this isn’t to
ivolmert@nd.edu
holder ended the discussion
Paid adverTisemenT by leaving book recommendations to learn more about the topics discussed, such as “slavery by another name” by douglas blackmon and “The second Founding” by eric Foner. additionally, addressing the large undergraduate student body that was attending the lecture, he gave a call to action to the young audience.
“You see the problems, now the question is what are we going to do as a nation to deal, deal with those problems? and this is not something that we simply leave to our elected leaders,” holder said. “The question is what are we as individual citizens, going to do, to be a part of the process of electoral reform?”
