By Iracema Navarro, Staff Reporter

Educating and engaging students about the March 3 California primary, the Nov. 7 general election and the 2020 U.S. Census was the focus of the Feb. 20 Drive the Vote and Get Counted event in the LSU.

About 50 students and community members attended the two-hour event, which was hosted by the Office of External Relations, ASI, and the Rose Black Resource Center.

The Drive the Vote and Get Counted event focused on providing voter education, on-site registration, and answers to any census questions.

Part of the education was informing students that their vote truly does count. Since 1980, voters ages 18-29 have voted in far smaller numbers than other age groups (last year. 41.6 percent, compared to 58.7 percent, ages 30-44; 66.6 percent, ages 45-64; and 70.9 percent, ages 65-and-over.

 “There is a misconception that one vote won’t count towards an election,” said Maurice Johnson, a  graduate student in sociology and graduate center for the Rose Black Resource Center. He believes this can change once one understands the voting process and how it affects their communities.

Workers from the Census Bureau encouraged the importance of students supporting their local communities. Students can do so by applying to be a paid census taker and ensure their own communities are being counted properly. The data will determine the number of House of Representatives for the state and the distribution of approximately  $675 billion in federal funding. 

Also, in attendance was Esperanza Guevara, Census Campaign Manager of the Civic Engagement department for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. An immigrant-powered organization, CHIRLA has been defending immigrant rights for more than 30 years. The civic engagement department with their volunteers and phone bankers are communicating with voters to get them out to vote.

“We’re focused mostly on the immigrant community and the Spanish-language speaking community,” said Guevara. “We go out into spaces like churches, or resident meetings, or even council meetings. We go to the consulate of Mexico to their LA office to do weekly outreach and make sure we’re giving them the information.”

One of the star attractions was the new ballot marking device that will be in voting centers across the state. The voting centers are replacing the traditional polling place, giving voters more opportunities to cast their vote.For example, there will be 13 voting centers in the city of Carson alone.