The upcoming general election has brought a wave of efforts to register the Carnegie Mellon University community to vote on campus. One of the voter registration efforts present on campus has been “CMU DRAMA VOTES 2024,” organized by MFA Directing student Kaycee Swierc. A voter registration table has recently been established in the center of the Purnell lobby and is being operated by both faculty and student volunteers.
Delaney Price, a second year design and production student at Carnegie Mellon University, heard about the registration initiative through an email sent to School of Drama students seeking volunteers to help operate the table.
“I’ve done a lot of canvassing in Pittsburgh in the greater area and I was a poll worker in high school,” Price explained. After signing up to volunteer, she was trained by NextGen America and has been picking up shifts at the registration table alongside students and faculty members. The effort is non-partisan and focused on education and registering as many students as possible. “I don’t care who people vote for,” Price said. “I care that people vote.”
Besides registering new voters, the table is also a place where people can double-check their registration or change which state they are registered to vote in.
“People don’t realize that they can shift [their registration] to Pennsylvania,” Price said. “Also, you can be registered in multiple states, as long as you don’t vote in multiple states.” The state of Pennsylvania carries 19 electoral votes — because Pennsylvania is an important state in the election, many students have opted to shift their voter registration status to Pennsylvania with campus addresses.
Sofia Garcia, a second-year School of Drama student, has joined the registration effort as a volunteer.
“It has been really wonderful to see my peers and people who I make art with come together and bond over political action, which is not something that I think we see very often at Carnegie Mellon as a whole,” Garcia explained. “So that’s been really, really exciting.” As an RA, Garcia brought a stack of registration applications to her dorm, where she hosted an event to register students.
“The efforts have extended beyond the walls of Purnell, which is really awesome,” Garcia said. She had experience working with the League of Women Voters and has worked on voter registration drives in the past.
“I know how exciting it can be to be like, ‘Wow. This person had no idea that they could vote, or that they weren’t registered, or that they were eligible,’” Garcia said. “With that background, I was excited to be able to bring that into Purnell.”
The registration efforts have received support from both faculty and students. “We’ve had a lot of students come up and even be like, ‘I’m registered to vote, but I love that you’re doing this.’” Price went on to say that, “I feel like we haven’t gotten as many numbers as anticipated, not because people don’t want to register to vote, but because everyone’s already registered.”
For those interested in being registered, Price explained what the registration process would be like at the table. “If you are a Pennsylvania voter, you’ll need your Pennsylvania ID. If you are new to Pennsylvania, you just need the last four digits of your social security number.”
This year’s 2024 presidential frontrunner candidates are Kamala Harris, current Vice President of the Biden administration, and former President Donald Trump, elected in 2016. Pew Research Center’s survey on top issues of the 2024 election highlights the economy, abortion, and immigration as leading issues of the election.
“Especially as drama students, so much is on the line. We are seeing arts organizations be defunded. That’s a big thing going on at a state level right now, and depending on which way the election goes, it very well could happen at the national level,” Price said. “I don’t think people realize all of those little specificities that aren’t the headline issues that most people are aware about, but are really important.”
Upcoming voter registration days at Purnell include Sept. 27 (11 a.m.–2 p.m. and 5 p.m.–6 p.m.), Oct. 2 (11 a.m.–2 p.m. and 5 p.m.-6 p.m.), October 7 and 8 (11 a.m.–2 p.m. and 5 p.m.–6 p.m.). Students unaffiliated with the School of Drama are encouraged to stop by the lobby to either register or check their registration status.
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