The Office of Community Relations is working to encourage voter registration for what will be the first presidential election that students will be able to vote on-campus.

Students residing in Hughes, Hicks, Sharp-Davis, Atkins-Ellis, Keeble and Livingston will be able to vote on campus, while others from Medlin, Storms and O’Bannon-Bowdle dorm complex will be voting at a separate location in Cleveland.

“About three-fourths of the students will cast their votes in the Centenary Room on November 4,” said Director of Community Relations Merica Stum.

As a student intern at the Office of Community Relations, Hallie Fann has researched the importance of voting and is now working to put up posters and informational announcements during chapel.

Research shows that 80% of students who register will eventually vote, so it is important to encourage them to register, according to Fann.

Fann will be heading up a booth in the PCSU on Sept. 17 and 18 and again on Oct. 1, 2 and 6 in order to register students to vote.

“We will help students fill out the form and mail it for them,” Fann said. “They have the power to choose [their candidate] if they fill out a simple little form.”

Fann will be among the volunteers to assist the students in filling out change of residency forms for students willing to vote in Tennessee, or the appropriate form to vote in their home state.

“Tennessee is an important state so we would like to see folks cast their vote here,” Stum said.

It is a good way to show to our community that Lee students not only make noise and take up parking space but are citizens of Cleveland, according to Fann. It makes more sense for students to vote in Cleveland, where they live for a significant period of time, than at home, but help is available no matter where students choose to register.

Individuals or student clubs may volunteer in the campaign for encouraging students to register to vote.

For more information, contact Stum at 423-614-8598. Her e-mail is mstum@leeuniversity.edu, or students can come by her office: Higginbotham Administration Building 209.

The Office of Community Relations partnered with the College Republicans last year to inform the students about the elections in 2008. Lee groups have helped students to register in Cleveland for the past four years.