By Luke Gentile

The University of Maryland was placed among the top 58 universities in the United States in 2018 for student political engagement, according to Washington Monthly.

“I think people here are really starting to care a lot more about the issues at hand,” said Andrew Stover, UMD SGA Vice President of Financial Affairs and junior public policy major. “Young people in particular are getting more engaged. They’re wanting to speak out more, wanting to do more.”

Around campus, different groups such as MaryPIRG, PLUMAS and the SGA are pushing students to be more civically involved. The TerpsVote Coalition in particular has been pushing students to register for the upcoming midterm elections.

Dr. Michael Hanmer, a professor of government and politics and research director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship, is on the TerpsVote Coalition steering committee. Hanmer said the group is developing an action plan to get more students active in their political community.

“The coalition is focused on getting information out to students about registration and voting and actually engaging students in the process,” he said.

Following its mission for greater involvement, TerpsVote is taking part in national competitions for student registration. The two largest competitions are the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge and the Big Ten Voting Challenge.

“The ALL IN Democracy Challenge is a group of schools that have submitted student information that gets checked against registration and voting information,” said Hanmer. “We essentially get ranked against our peers, and, overall, we get information about turnout rates among different subgroups across campus.”

Stover is more involved in the Big Ten Voting Challenge, and he is trying to help UMD win it.

“This is a challenge between all the Big Ten schools to register the most people to vote on their campus,” he said. “Michigan is leading the effort right now, but hopefully we are going to catch up with them and get those numbers as high as possible.”

Stover said it will be hard to catch up to Michigan, but the online registration app TurboVote could be the tool that leads the the Terps to victory.

The TurboVote app is an online program, accessible through Testudo, that the SGA uses to help students and faculty register to vote.

“It’s a nice platform to take advantage of a lot of the online voter registration systems that exist,” Hanmer said. “It provides a centralized hub to help students navigate. So, you can go there, and, if you’re from Maryland, find the Maryland relevant information. If you’re from California, find that. You’re not out there on your own trying to figure out where to go.”

The idea that young people do not fully understand the process and are unable to make informed decisions is something that both Hanmer and Stover reject.

“There is a role for institutions to play in encouraging people to get involved in the process, and I think universities are particularly well suited for that,” Hanmer said. “Our mission is fundamentally about education, and I think that by providing non-partisan efforts to give people information, so they can make an informed choice and letting them know what’s at stake, is an important thing that universities can do.”

He said that, especially for underclassmen, there are a lot of disruptions that come with going to a university.

With college comes more freedom, Hanmer said, but that freedom is coupled with a transition toward more responsibility. For him, trying to provide some information about what to expect as students enter this new world of opportunities is crucial.

Hanmer said that chief among these is the political system, and Stover could not agree more.

“I know there are so many people here who are caring and informed, and they want to get out there and make a difference,” Stover said. “Trying to stifle the youth vote is something a lot of people have tried to do. If young people don’t get out and actually vote, politicians won’t listen to what they have to say. They won’t care about their interests. So, it’s very important that college students make up a large and ever-growing part of the voting population and put their voice out there.”