Political signs displayed in dorm windows, new voter buttons on backpacks and registrars on every corner of campus.

Recap of the 2004 elections? No, it’s the picture students everywhere around campus will see throughout the fall semester as student groups work together to register new voters and promote a huge voter turnout for 18- to 24-year-olds for the Nov. 7 midterm congressional elections and gubernatorial election.

There will also be local elections including district attorney and Wisconsin referendums on gay marriage and the death penalty.

In 2004, New Voters Project, coordinated through the Wisconsin Public Interest Research Group (WISPIRG), registered 142,000 students around the state and helped increase voter youth turnout by 12 percent from the 2000 election.

This election is even more important than the 2004 presidential elections, said David Schaffer, the WISPIRG campus organizer.

“We have to show that the (voter) increase in ’04 wasn’t just a fluke,” Schaffer said.

In Milwaukee, State Rep. Jon Richards told Schaffer that UWM’s ward, with a high percentage of youth votes, had the highest voter turnout in his district.

If youth voter turnout is lowered, Schaffer said it could continue “the cycle of neglect (wherein) students aren’t voting because politicians aren’t listening, and politicians aren’t listening because students aren’t voting.”

It is this cycle that motivated Pew grants to finance the continuation of the New Voters Project for 2006 on 70 campuses in 20 states. Due to Wisconsin’s same-day voter registration, four UW campuses — Milwaukee, Stevens Point, Oshkosh and Madison — were chosen for New Voters Project sites.

The Pew grant enabled UWM’s chapter of WISPIRG to stay active for fall 2006 even though the group received no money from segregated fees for the 2006-’07 year.

WISPIRG will coordinate efforts with the Student Association (SA), the Student Vote Coalition, Alliance for Animals and other interested groups to ensure the campaign’s efficiency and to cover as much ground as possible. SA sent e-mails to all campus organizations and planned a preliminary meeting for Sept. 19, the week after the primary elections, for all interested groups.

That same week, WISPIRG has set for their kickoff day. The actual date will be set by volunteers and interns, who will help coordinate the efforts and who can receive academic credit through faculty advisers in a wide range of departments when committed to more than 10 hours a week.

Regardless of what organization students work closest with, the goal is, “to get as many students as we can (to vote),” said Kyle Duerstein, SA legislative affairs director.

The first collective effort will be for organizations to get as many students as possible deputized — legally sworn in — by the city to register voters.

Then, by the sixth week of school, Oct. 9-13, WISPIRG can follow through on its planned blitz week, when registrars will be everywhere on and around campus registering and encouraging voters in a nonpartisan canvassing effort.

In 2004 Wisconsin came in second only to Minnesota in youth voting.

This year, “We want to beat Minnesota,” Schaffer said. “And, by increasing the vote, we can make politicians pay attention to issues that matter to us.”

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