Cyberbear can help voter registration

This week, ASUM President Dustin Leftridge approached the University of Montana administration with a proposal to incorporate a Rock the Vote widget, an application to register for voting, into Cyberbear. This brilliant idea resulted from brainstorming between ASUM and Forward Montana CEO Matt Singer.

Despite online networking and grassroots organizations, college-aged voters — the future leaders of American business, society and government — remain outside the political landscape. Only 25 percent of eligible voters under 30 cast ballots in last month’s Ohio primary.

Anything that can be done to raise that number in Montana should be done. With Montana’s upcoming June 3 primary and November’s general election, the Rock the Vote widget is the perfect opportunity to get students involved, and it’s something we can do almost instantly.

But looking to future elections, let’s go one step further and incorporate voter registration into Cyberbear itself. Rather than relying on an outside organization like Rock the Vote, this should be a UM-based initiative. It would be like registering to vote when you get your license, and UM is just as much a state agency as the Motor Vehicle Division.

With a little effort on behalf of the entire campus community, voter registration could be just as routine to campus life as coffee at the UC or putting off that final paper.

Certainly, there are security concerns that come along with voter registration, concerns that are doubly important because of the fluid nature of UM’s population. But the benefits of registering swaths of college-aged voters demand that UM students, staff, faculty and administrators work toward integrating voter registration with Cyberbear. Not to do so would surrender thousands of potential voters to irrelevance and apathy.