Liberty University hoping for strong voter turnout on Tuesday

LYNCHBURG - With as many as 3,200 Liberty University students eligible to vote in Tuesday’s election, the school has turned into a battleground for local politics.

To encourage a strong turnout on Election Day, the university canceled classes and announced plans to run buses to the polls.

Meanwhile, the election is unfolding across campus, from dorm-room debates to a 10-page election special in the student newspaper.

Friday morning, Republican Scott Garrett manned the main entrance to the Vines Center as thousands of students flooded past for convocation — a required event for all on-campus undergraduates. Garrett, who is challenging Del. Shannon Valentine in Lynchburg’s House of Delegates race, shook hands with students and encouraged them to vote.

A few feet away, members from the College Democrats and College Republican clubs distributed hundreds of pieces of campaign literature for Valentine and Garrett, respectively.

Friday was just one example of how the elections are playing out at Liberty.

The wheels began turning early this semester, when the university launched a campus-wide effort to get students to vote in local elections. Through its voter registration drive, more than 1,700 students registered to vote before last month’s deadline, Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. said.

Liberty’s first concerted voter registration drive took place last fall, when about 4,000 students registered to vote in the presidential election. Falwell has said that while he hopes for a strong showing on Election Day, the school is more interested in City Council elections next spring.

Still, the campus drew a convocation visit from Republican gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell in October, and members of the Republican club have been steady volunteers at the city’s GOP headquarters on Wards Road this fall.

Many of them were present at a rally Friday that featured McDonnell and Michael Steele, the Republican Party’s national chairman, as well as candidates Bill Bolling for lieutenant governor and Ken Cuccinelli for attorney general. At one point, Cuccinelli told the students that their turnout could boost Garrett into office.

While Republican candidates are enthusiastic about the prospects of a favorable bump by Liberty student voters, student attitudes toward Tuesday’s election range from apathy to mild interest to gung-ho enthusiasm.

For some, it’s an opportunity to have a voice in local politics, for others it’s simply a day off from classes, with perks like free ice skating and open dorms — a rare event when the single-sex dorms open their doors to the opposite gender.

Derek Kitchen, a sophomore and Delaware native, registered as a Lynchburg voter last fall so he could vote in a swing state for the presidential elections.

“I don’t know that much about the local elections since I’m not from here,” he said.

Kitchen plans to vote on Tuesday, after he does more research on the candidates.

“I’m not super hardcore for one candidate or another.”

Wesley Reed walked out of the Vines Center Friday holding a large “Bob 4 Jobs” sign that he picked up from the College Republicans table. Though he is registered to vote in his home state of Ohio, Reed has been following local politics.

“It’s nice just to know what’s going on,” he said.

For the College Democrats, the election provides an opportunity to move forward after a summer tinged by controversy.

Last May, LU withdrew its recognition of the College Democrats club, mostly because of the national Democratic Party’s pro-choice and pro-gay marriage platform.

After a month of back-and-forth negotiations, Falwell announced a change to university policy that put the club on equal footing with the College Republicans: both clubs became unofficial.

“What happened in the summer, I think that’s in the past,” said College Democrats president Joel Krautter.

Both clubs reported a slight drop in student membership, with the Democrats at about 25 members and the Republicans hovering near 50.

But in recent weeks, club leaders report that the election has provided a boost of support.

Zach Martin, second vice chairman of the College Republicans, has spent the last few weeks recruiting new members. He said the College Republicans provided a steady stream of students to make nightly phone calls to voters from the Republican Party’s Lynchburg headquarters on Wards Road.

“For me, it’s the idea of having conservative leaders in the community. Getting those people who have Christian mindsets to make good, Godly decisions,” Martin said.

Jonathan Dimanche, a sophomore from Long Island, attended his first College Democrats meeting this semester. He is registered to vote in Lynchburg, and plans to cast his ballot after doing more research on the candidates.

“Coming down here to a conservative bubble kind of made me feel like an outcast,” Dimanche said, adding that he is determined to “stand and not waver” on his views.

For College Democrat member Israel Jackson, the election is as much about getting students to vote as it is about embracing political diversity.

“I think it’s essential that this university gets perspectives from both sides of the aisle,” Jackson said.