{"id":18130,"date":"2019-09-11T09:00:29","date_gmt":"2019-09-11T16:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=18130"},"modified":"2019-09-24T09:23:19","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T16:23:19","slug":"camosun-college-student-society-campaign-encourages-students-to-raise-their-voices-and-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2019\/09\/11\/camosun-college-student-society-campaign-encourages-students-to-raise-their-voices-and-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun College Student Society campaign encourages students to raise their voices and vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) and the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) are working together to launch the Get Out the Vote campaign, which encourages students to vote in the upcoming federal election. The campaign was launched at Camosun on Tuesday, September 3 and runs until October 21, which is federal election day.<\/p>\n

The CCSS and CASA are directing their efforts wherever needed to encourage students to vote. This can be on social media, through canvassing, by mailing out flyers, or by going out and talking to people face to face, for example, on campus. This fall, CASA and the CCSS (and other student associations across Canada) have created the non-partisan Get Out the Vote campaign to help motivate post-secondary students to get involved in the political process.<\/p>\n

CCSS external executive Fillette Umulisa believes that students need to see how important their vote is.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the whole purpose of this campaign is to mobilize students to get out and vote, because CASA and the [Camosun College] Student Society feel that democracy is important and if students actually vote, they can help shape the future,\u201d she says. \u201cIt is also easier now than ever for students to vote, so we don\u2019t see why we shouldn\u2019t be out there encouraging them to vote, because that is what counts.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A banner for the Get Out the Vote campaign hangs on the walkway between Ewing and Fisher on the Lansdowne campus (photo by Greg Pratt\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Umulisa is enthusiastic about the campaign and hopes that it will speak to students and show them that their opinion is important.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will be doing a lot of mobilization, so we\u2019ll table, we\u2019ll host events, we\u2019ll go to classes to talk to students,\u201d she says. \u201cWe are going to be on campus getting students to pledge to vote, giving them information about where to vote, directing them to sites like Elections Canada, for example. We try and find out what they are wanting to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

Umulisa says that the campaign is completely non-partisan, and says that the CCSS is hosting a candidate\u2019s forum on Wednesday, October 2.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor students that are interested, there will be people that are running that you can meet and talk to,\u201d she says, \u201cbut we are not pointing any students in any direction, or canvassing for any political party.\u201d<\/p>\n

The average overall voter turnout in federal elections has remained below 70 percent since 1993, according to the Canadian Library of Parliament; however, the youth vote has continued to climb. In the last federal election, in 2015, the youth turnout was 57.1 percent, an 18-percent increase from 2011.<\/p>\n

Third-year Marketing student Jodi Shambrook believes that voting is the only way to voice concerns about the government\u2019s decision-making process.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely think it\u2019s important,\u201d says Shambrook, \u201cespecially when you have people who don\u2019t vote and who then complain about who gets in or the decisions that have been made.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shambrook says that being politically active is a sure way to be heard as a student.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really believe that you have the right to complain if you aren\u2019t active,\u201d says Shambrook, \u201cand if you don\u2019t put in your vote, things won\u2019t change. I think it\u2019s really important that everyone exercises their right to vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

First-year Business student Reid Taylor says it\u2019s important to vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think 100 percent it\u2019s important for students to vote in the election,\u201d says Taylor.<\/p>\n

First year Arts and Science student Bailey Pepper thinks that it\u2019s crucial for students to vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think it\u2019s so important for students to get out and vote, because everyone fought for the right to be able to vote, and that\u2019s overlooked a lot,\u201d says Pepper. \u201cI think that the government does have a lot to do with our post-secondary schooling, and it affects us. I think that students need to learn everything they can about it, and participate.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) and the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) are working together to launch the Get Out the Vote campaign, which encourages students to vote in the upcoming federal election. The campaign was launched at Camosun on Tuesday, September 3 and runs until October 21, which is federal election day. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,239],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-september-11-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18132,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18130\/revisions\/18132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}