Departments conduct voter registration

More than 200 campus community members registered to vote during the UTRGV Office of Student Involvement’s Rock the

Vote event last Tuesday.

“We wanted to make sure we gave our students, faculty and staff an opportunity to verify that they are registered voters in our

county or to sign up to be registered voters since we do have early voting coming up Oct. 19th through the 30th,” said Cindy

Mata-Vasquez, director of student activities for the Office of Student Involvement.

The department partnered with the UTRGV Political Science Department to host the event on both campuses in observance of

National Voter Registration Day, Mata-Vasquez said.

Yanely Jimenez, an office assistant in the Engaged Scholarship Leadership Department, helped students fill out voter

registration cards.

“What we’re trying to do is register as many students as we can, that way they can be eligible to vote on the next elections that

are coming up,” Jimenez said.

She said only one out of 10 people in the Rio Grande Valley vote.

“That is a really low turnout and we want that to change by giving information to the students and telling them it is important

to go out and vote.”

The goal was to register 200 students to vote, Mata-Vasquez said.

“I think we hit our number,” she said. “We had Rock the Vote T-shirts, we gave out free pizza. I think it’s a good way to entice

them to see what we’re doing for student involvement, for not only the campus, but for the community.”

“I haven’t [registered] before,” said Christopher Araiza, a mechanical engineering junior. “This is my first time doing it.”

Anyone wanting to register to vote may fill out an application at the Office of Student Involvement. Oct. 5 is the deadline to

register to vote in the Nov. 3 election.

Student Involvement is located in Student Union 1.28 in Brownsville and University Center 205 in Edinburg.

“We’ll take the registration cards and send them to the proper locations and then students can get the voter card in the mail,”

Mata-Vasquez said.