Coastal Carolina University (CCU) is pushing a fairly new Student Government Association (SGA) initiative, Vote 1954, which encourages students to get involved in local, presidential and SGA elections.
CCU’s SGA applied for a CCU Sustainability Grant in spring 2024, kickstarting Vote 1954. Once approved, SGA partnered with the Office of the President and Auxiliary Enterprises to bring this to life, with SGA President Gabrielle Ryder and her executive board spearheading the framework.
Vote 1954 originally began with the goal of getting 1,954 students to vote in the SGA election, as well as encouraging students to make their voices heard and offer various voting resources. According to Vice President for University Belonging & Student Affairs Yvonne Hernandez Friedman, the primary goal of Vote 1954 now is to get students interested in sharing their voice and registering to vote.
She said their focus is on supplying students with important information surrounding elections, candidates and the voter registration process in general.
“We want to use the momentum around, obviously the presidential election, but we want to expand past it if that makes sense,” she said. “We want students to get excited about the presidential election, get excited about having their voice heard through voting, because we hope then it will translate into other opportunities to vote.”
Junior public health major Somoya Lamkin has been highly involved in promoting the initiative since its initial debut last spring. Lamkin works for the Civic Engagement Office at CCU and serves as SGA’s president pro tempore. For her, the initiative is much bigger than the number of students who vote or register to vote.
“I think this is really important for students to know about because I feel like as students, we typically go off our parents’ political votes and views,” she said. “So, I think it’s important that students understand policies and procedures and politics for themselves and not for what their parents [believe].”
Lamkin said her favorite part about both of her jobs is seeing students get excited about politics and registering to vote right in front of her. She encourages students to interact with the people running these events and to get informed, which includes avoiding clickbait and instead doing in-depth research and investigating.
“Look at policies, procedures, things that you see on TikTok like, look those things up. Go further in detail to understand what’s going on around you,” she said.
Friedman said they have had a 650% increase in Turbo Vote engagement from last academic year due to the activities, including tabling, surrounding the Vote 1954 initiative. Their Turbo Vote tabling last year allowed students to register to vote in a safe and convenient environment, which is set to return at the Farmer’s Market on Oct. 2.
