The University of Utah Gets Its Own Voting Center

With the presidential elections looming ever-more closely ahead of us, so many questions come to mind. Who do I vote for? How do I vote? WHERE do I vote? The election can be scary for more than one (or two) reasons, but luckily, one University of Utah student has got you covered!

Young people are currently the nation’s least likely demographic to turn out to the polls on election day. Seeing this huge gap in voter turn out, Satin Tashnizi (pronounced sat-teen) took it upon herself to change that. With the help of Government Relations Board Director Connor Yakaitis, local activists Kim Gabbitas and Dan Thompson, along with a little bit of help from the University of Utah’s President David W. Pershing, she was able to bring the polls to the students of the U. 

For the first time, there will a designated election center in the Goulding Auditorium of the Marriott Library. In an Interview with Satin, Her Campus was given the inside scoop on the new Campus Voting Center, how it came about, and what it hopes to accomplish. 

The first step in voting is getting registered. You can register to vote online here unitl November 1st, but if you miss that deadline, the Campus Voting Center will offer same day voter registration – a privilege not many voting centers have. In her interview, Satin explain why the U was able to get this amazing opportunity. 

Satin: “This is a very unique opportunity for us because this year we have same-day voter registration here in it’s final year of the pilot program. Three years ago, a series of government relations students from when I was a freshman lobbied the legislature as well as a lot of activist groups to bring forth same-day voter registration so that you can go register to vote on the same day at the voting booth. It was a really, really hard battle for them to make that work, and they got it for three years as a pilot program. We’ll see how this impacts elections, and we’ll see where this goes and decide this year if they are going to renew that or not. This is in it’s final year, so right now, students could technically go to these polling locations with their ID and be registered to vote, and then immediately vote. So we are turning around first time voters that statistically will vote in more elections because we got them at such a young age.”

Voting for the first time can be very overwhelming, and many students feel discouraged from voting. Many make the argument that their vote doesn’t count, and that they won’t make a difference. However this couldn’t be farther from the truth. Don’t be discouraged from voting; the Campus Voting Center aims to be a place of encouragement for young people to voice their opinion. With helpful poll workers, and students who are just as confused as you may be helping each other out. 

Satin: “I think a lot of young people are discouraged, that’s the number one answer you’ll get as to why students don’t vote. Every one of them will tell you ‘my vote doesn’t count in Utah’, but in this election it really does matter because Utah is in play for once in history, and more importantly, regardless of who is at the top of the ticket, you are also voting for your local leaders. The power that is closest to you will affect you the most. That’s where you are getting your school funding, your higher education funding, funding for non-profits, and construction. Your mayor is your neighbor, so you really can have an impact. You can call them and say that you don’t agree with something, and there is a lot more impact you can have as a young person, both with the power of your ballot, and with the power of your voice. The fact that I can do this is testament to that. If I can do this, you can do a lot, even in Utah.”

Coming from immigrant parents who saw the effects of a non-democratic government, Satin holds her right to vote very close to her heart. There are even countries that allow men to vote, but deny that same right to women. Inequalities like these are another huge reason that we all need to hit the polls this November. 

Satin: “Sometimes we take our right to vote for granted. My parents are immigrants from a country where they did not have the right to vote. Every person in this country has the equal right to vote, but that is not the case in a lot of countries. And even if they do have the right to vote on paper, that does not mean that it is a transparent process. If everyone voted, there is no amount of money that could contradict that. Young people being able to vote is a big deal, and we need to take advantage of that.”

Even in our own country, voter suppression is happening every day. Whether it is intentional or not, many people have their ability to vote taken from them, and this is something that the Campus Voting Center is hoping to combat. 

Satin: “I read an article just yesterday that there is a campus, University of Wisconsin, that their clerk denied them a voting location because students are more likely to vote democratic. Injustices like this where there is intentional voter suppression happening all over the country that gets no media attention. This is a real issue that spread across a lot of campuses and it doesn’t come to our attention. In Salt Lake County, they are trying to go to mail-in ballots. There are students that live on campus that don’t have mailboxes because you have to pay for one, so these student are unable to get a mail-in ballot. In some way, you make an argument that these young people don’t have the ability to vote in the election if they don’t have cars to get to a polling location. If some students are receiving mail-in ballots, and others aren’t, this is a huge problem for the county. It’s a lot of voters not voting, and it’s a lot of voters that can’t vote.”

The idea for the Campus Voting Center became one of the main platforms in Satin’s 2015 ‘Empower’ campaign for Student Body President. Since that day, she has worked tirelessly to make this dream into a reality. 

Satin: “I was sitting in the library one day before I had even assembled my team to run for student government, and it just occurred to me that there is such an untapped demographic to vote. I’ve always been passionate about young people voting, it’s really, really important to me. Young people really need to vote, and bringing a voting location to a central area like the University of Utah were there is over 30,000 students, it almost seems like a no-brainer. When if first crossed my mind, I thought something like this probably already exists, so I went to do the research and realized that there’s nothing. I think the last time we had a polling location was 2006, and even then it wasn’t a voter center, just a precinct location. So I kind of wanted to see where it would go, and I’m really happy to see that it went as far as it did.”

The process to bring to polls to campus was not an easy one, nor did it happen overnight. It took over a year and half of hard work, and lot of dead ends to finally be able to bring the voting center to campus. 

Satin: I started it with my campaign, my running mate and I, and a group of students I was working with. The pivotal moment was when I started to collaborate with other students: Kim Gabbitas, Government Relations Board Director Connor Yakaitis, and Dan Thompson. Kim and Dan are activists who has worked on a lot of other campaigns in the community. I went through a loop of talking, originally on my own, thought the county clerks office, I went to the Lieutenant Governor’s office, and I went to the legislature and everybody kind of gave me a ‘yes’ but no one really gave me a hard yes. Eventually, Kim and I got together and she was also interested in this idea, so we started to make some plans on what we were going to do. I looped in Connor because he was the GR board Director at the U, so he was obviously a very useful resource for students if we were to get a polling location. Together, Kim and I arranged a meeting with President Pershing and said ‘we are here because we have reached a dead end’. We talked with President Pershing, and he was awesome. He really took the time to meet with us and he spoke with the County Clerk’s office, and then we got the phone call saying that we were getting polling locations. This was a year and half long process.”

Although the process wasn’t easy, quitting was never an option. The impact that the Campus Voting Center could have on this election is incalculable; If enough students turn out to vote, the Center could become a permanent fixture on campus. There are now as many  millennials who are elligible to vote as there are there are baby boomers, which could completely change the game. 

Satin: “I am hoping to put the data side by side and take that to the legislature and to the county so we can argue for more polling locations for elections down the road. It is very very very important that we register to vote! Online voter registration deadline is November 1st (here). You can also register to vote in person at the polling center. I even keep voter registration forms in my car. In past years, students may have been registered to vote while on campus, but then not voted because they didn’t know where to go vote. That is definitely an issue and I think that another advantage universities have is that they have resources to market and incentivize students to vote with pizza and on social media. When you have 34,000 students on a commuter campus and a centralized polling place like the library, I think that could make a bigger impact than what we think it could.”

This upcoming election could turn out to be one of the most important in history, so make sure that your voice is heard! Don’t forget to register online or in person at the Campus Voting Center, and get ready to make a difference. To quote DJ Kahled, they don’t want you to vote.  They don’t want you to be activists. So you know what you gotta do? You gotta go vote. 

Editor’s Note: All articles for Her Campus at the University of Utah are the opinions and beliefs of the writers and do not reflect Her Campus at the University of Utah, the University of Utah or Her Campus as an international magazine.

• election
• presidential election
• voter registration
• voting