The small crowd of students in attendance for the “Gather and Giveback: Voices of Tomorrow, Register and Connect” event, learned about the importance of staying informed about voting, Wednesday evening.

Cassandra Pegg-Kirby, director of the Women’s Center, said the center collaborated with Kent State Votes, an Undergraduate Student Government-affiliated organization aimed at encouraging students to vote, for the event to discuss how students can prepare for the upcoming election.

“When it comes to the political arena,” she said, “those are folks that will speak for you, and so you need to make sure you’re weighing on what that looks like.”

A number of issues on the election ballot like reproductive rights and the environment can affect women, however, Pegg-Kirby said all issues have the potential to affect everyone.

“[Issues] may not be on the ballot, but based on what the people you’re voting for value, there can be a difference on those,” she said.

Craig Berger, co-chair of Kent State Votes Coalition and associate director of Community Engaged Learning, started the event with a presentation on the importance of helping college students vote.

He said some students feel like their vote does not matter and choose not to vote, but they need to be reminded how a single vote can contribute to the outcome of an election.

“The 2000 presidential election was decided by 537 votes in one state and local races are usually much closer,” he said. “There have been races in Kent, actually, city council races that have been decided by single digits.”

During Berger’s presentation, he informed students on which voter registration forms to fill out based on what location they plan to vote from.

For those who want to register to vote in Ohio, they can visit the university’s library and pick up a registration form there, Berger said. 

“[The university’s librarians] will actually work with you, help you fill that out,” he said. “You will turn that in, they can quality check that for you to make sure that everything looks good, and they immediately send that to the board of elections.”  

Signing up online can be difficult for out-of-state students as it requires an Ohio’s driver license for voter identification. Filling out a form at the library allows out-of-state students to use other forms of identification like a passport to register, Berger said. 

Before voting, students can visit Vote411 to view issues and candidates on the ballot, he said. The website also offers other resources for becoming a poll worker and checking voter registration.

“You can actually use that website to preview your ballot, do research and figure out how you’re going to vote before you go,” Berger said.

Following the presentation, attendees were invited to decorate rocks with nonpartisan phrases encouraging people to vote or share why they choose to vote on the “#ThisiswhyIvote” board.

Pegg-Kirby said she was glad the event focused on motivating students to vote as since the women’s suffrage movement of the 1920s, voting has not only become a right but a responsibility for women.

“There are people who fought really hard … put their lives at risk, put their livelihoods at risk, put lots of things on the line because this was important,” she said. “When they didn’t have the right, how detrimental that was, and now we do, let’s make sure we make it count.”

Adriana Gasiewski is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].