Students urged to check addresses before voting
Feb. 1, 2008
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On Feb. 5, Boone County Clerk Wendy Noren is going to have her hands full counting votes and making sure voters are going to the right polling places. But she’s been urging students to help ease some of the responsibility and make sure they’ve completed an address change so they can go to the correct poll.
“Which one you go to depends on where you live,” Noren said.
Noren’s office mailed sample ballots to voters last week, and Noren said that if someone did not receive the ballot, they must submit the change of address.
“We have thousands of voters who we have flagged as needing to process the address,” Noren said.
Noren said this problem is especially important for students to understand, because they change addresses much more often than the typical Columbia citizen.
“Students who make the mistake of going to their old polling place will have to contact us on election day and experience delays,” Noren said. “Most will have to go to a new polling place, as the law requires that voters must vote at the polling place designated for the current address.”
Noren said this problem was apparent in the 2006 election cycle. She said 500 people cast ballots at Memorial Union that year, but 368 had to change addresses and go somewhere else. Noren said this poses an inconvenience, especially for students.
“Sometimes students will come in at 6:30 p.m. just before polls close and it’s just too late to change address,” she said. “Sometimes students will come in between classes and won’t have time to come back later.”
Although most students living on campus will vote at certain polling places, including Memorial Union, Paquin Towers and Campus Lutheran Church, students who move off campus most likely won’t vote at the same place, Noren said.
“A lot think they voted there in ‘06 and then they go back there,” Noren said. “But they don’t vote there anymore.”
More than anything else, Noren said the worst problem that could arise from neglecting to complete a change of address is the creation of voter irritation and apathy.
“This is the number one thing students need to know to keep them from getting frustrated with the system,” she said. “I want them to keep voting for the rest of their lives.”
For more information or to contact Wendy Noren, students can visit showmeboone.com/clerk.
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