Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon and Ramsey County Elections Administrator Emily Hunt answered students’ questions about voting and the upcoming election at a Voting 101 panel hosted by St. Thomas Wednesday.

Changemaking for the Common Good; Undergraduate Student Government; Center for the Common Good; and the Civic Engagement, Voter Education and Advocacy Task Force created this event to help students, who recently registered to vote, learn more about the upcoming presidential election and what to do during the unusual events that surround voting in 2020.

“Now more than ever, we need the vote of the younger generation to lead our country,” St. Thomas President Julie Sullivan said.

Voter registration day was Tuesday, Sept. 22, which kickstarted several events and discussions hosted by CEVEA and other campus groups.

“I attended a webinar about getting students more involved in the election process,” Manuela Hill-Munoz, chair of the CEVEA Task Force and Changemaking for the Common Good, said. “I spoke with Michael Hall, who works in the Secretary of State office in voter engagement, and he was our connection to the SOS and that’s how we got here.”

Roughly 30 students and staff gathered to listen to what Simon and Hunt had to say about the new and former ways that people can vote.

“We wanted students to be able to hear directly from the source because we believe that it’s important that students get the most direct information,” Munoz said.

The event covered a variety of questions from students and staff relating to how students can vote in-person or by mail.

“Every year, just like everyone else, college students have the option to vote by mail or in person,” Hunt said. “As of Friday, Sept. 18, people can come to our office or a couple of other locations in Ramsey County and vote in-person, or people can request a ballot be mailed to them.”

Many St. Thomas students have been wondering where to vote if they are from outside Ramsey County in Minnesota.

“You can vote in either place, St. Paul or wherever you’re from,” Simon said. “It doesn’t have anything to do with your driver’s license. Go to the Secretary of State site and find out the rules for eligibility for voting and then choose where you’re going to vote.”

Another question students have is, “Does my vote actually matter?” Simon believes it does.

“Of course your vote matters, you’ve got power, and when you don’t use it and you ‘leave it on the table,’ someone else is going to swipe it,” Simon said.

At Voting 101, there were also questions about how Minnesota is working to engage people of color who may have issues getting out to vote.

“We have a vigorous voter outreach program that is non-partisan,” Simon said. “It just tells people to vote and gives people the rules and tools to vote.”

This election year overlapping with the COVID-19 pandemic has caused some election laws to change.

“All elections are intense, presidential elections are even more intense, but now you have to layer on top of that, that this is happening during a once-in-a-century pandemic,” Simon said. “That means some of the rules have changed, and it also means that in so many other areas of our lives, we are going to have to be a bit more patient this year.”

CEVEA will continually host events through Tommie Link up until Election Day.

Kate Ostaffe and Katelynn Padden, St. Thomas Campus Election Engagement Project interns, both had the opportunity to thank Simon and Hunt for their contributions to the discussions. Both students have been instrumental in creating, promoting and organizing election education events.

“It makes a difference that everything is over Zoom,” Padden said. “That’s been a bit of a challenge for us, overall, is just working on engaging people and figuring out how people will still want to come even if it is over Zoom. But overall, I think it was pretty successful.”

The collaboration of CEVEA and Changemaking for the Common Good, Undergraduate Student Government and the Center for the Common Good have been student-led, to create a social media presence that draws students to participate in events.

“Katelyn and I worked a lot on making the promotional posters and digital posters,” Ostaffe said. ”We both posted a bunch of stuff on social media and told all of our friends and we’ve done a lot to promote the event.”

To find more information on COVID-19 safety guidelines for voting, and for information on how to register or apply for an absentee ballot, visit the Secretary of State’s information site.

“This is going to look, feel and be a different kind of election, for the obvious reasons,” Simon said.

Mae Macfarlane can be reached at macf7507@stthomas.edu.