MU hosts Democratic Youth Voter Summit

College democrats from across the state travelled to MU to attend the summit.

By Allison Prang

Published Sept. 21, 2010

The College Democrats Youth Voter Summit was held Saturday in the MU Student Center.

The summit served as an outlet for college democrats from across the state to come together to plan for the November elections and discuss campaign tactics. The event was sponsored by the Young Democrats of Missouri, the Missouri Democratic Party and Organizing for America, a branch of President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

“The point is to help our organization and organizations across the state to get out the vote and get people energized for the election,” MU College Democrats Communications Director Tyler Ricketts said.

Erin McCann, director of Organizing for America for Missouri, went over campaign tips and tactics with students, some of which were taken from the Obama campaign in 2008.

Students learned about different leadership techniques, the do’s and don’ts of talking to people about campaigns and voting and basic social techniques on how to motivate personal political action in others.

“As a student leader in 2010, you really have two main objectives,” McCann said to the group. “One, you want to grow your organization on campus, and two, we want to talk to as many young voters as possible.”

McCann said the goal of the summit was to train student leaders on how to work with their volunteers on their campus and how to be effective leaders.

“I think the biggest goal is to just have them be able to have a training where they can all get together and share ideas for what’s working at their schools and how they can work to grow their organization,” McCann said.

The MU College Democrats have a lot of volunteers eager to get involved, College Democrats President Iavora Vlaytcheva said.

“We have a lot of eager volunteers,” Vlaytcheva said. “They want to get involved but they don’t really know how. I hope that the people who came can take valuable tools to take the field.”

Students from Truman State University, Southeast Missouri State University, the University of Central Missouri and St. Louis University attended, as well as members of the MU College Democrats. Ricketts said the summit was held at MU because it is a central location.

Vlaytcheva said it was helpful to meet with college democrats from other schools to give and take advice. She said the MU College Democrats also campaign for democrats not necessarily in their district, so it was nice to learn more about those politicians.