SGA plans to buy online voter registration system

Students line up in the Stamp Student Union’s Atrium in order to vote in the 2014 election.

In the hopes of increasing civic engagement among University of Maryland students, the SGA plans on purchasing an online voter registration system before the semester ends.

TurboVote, operated by the nonprofit organization Democracy Works, helps people register to vote and keep track of local, state and national elections through email and text message alerts.

Student Government Association President Patrick Ronk said about $3,000 of the SGA’s legislative budget would be used to fund the service.

“We’ll pay the upfront cost so that all students can register,” he said. “It will be completely free for people to register to vote online.”

At the start of the semester, the SGA lobbied the administration to bring back the system that was taken down after this university deemed it too vulnerable following the February 2014 data breach. The online system enabled in-state and out-of-state students to register using their student ID number and campus address.

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While Ronk considered the system a success — it saw 2,327 registrations during the 2012 election — bringing it back would be more difficult than partnering with TurboVote, he said.

“We realized building the online registration system could be a lot more expensive than TurboVote,” Ronk said. “It’s essentially the same service as the in-house one, with a lot less liability because none of the information is being housed on University of Maryland servers.”

Ronk said the SGA consulted other Big Ten schools that use the service, such as the University of Nebraska, Pennsylvania State University and Rutgers University, and received positive feedback.

TurboVote partners with several schools across the country, said Brandon Naylor, Democracy Works’ communications director.

“TurboVote meets students where they are,” he said. “How much easier is it to sign up on your phone for something than to worry about finding a paper ballot somewhere?”

Ronk said the SGA is working with this university’s legal services to ensure it is safe to partner with TurboVote. Ronk also said they hope to build TurboVote into testudo.umd.edu so students can register through the university website.

Before moving forward with the partnership, the SGA governmental affairs committee must draft legislation requesting to use part of the SGA’s legislative budget to fund it.

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Ronk said he also supports a state universal voter registration bill that will be up for consideration during the upcoming legislative session in January. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Roger Manno (D-Montgomery), would automatically register anyone over the age of 18 in Maryland to vote.

Manno said making it easier for young people and students to vote will boost lackluster turnout numbers, especially during primaries and gubernatorial elections.

“We spend so much money and effort getting folks opportunities to vote, which I think we should — it’s money well spent,” he said. “ But we’re not getting that many people enfranchised, and it’s a problem.”