Helping the vote get out

Cathy Cockrell photo

06 November 2002 | As voters cast their ballots in Tuesday’s general election, sophomore Matthew Beasley, a member of the campus Youth Vote coalition, helped fellow Berkeley students find their local polling places from a table outside Moffitt Library. The coalition’s election-day get-out-the-vote effort — which included rides from Foothill residence hall to a polling place at International House — was the culmination of an ambitious fall voter registration drive, which succeeded in adding more than 6,500 Berkeley students to the local electoral rolls. Organizers say they will be watching the turnout in Districts 6 and 7, both of which have large student populations, for a read on how well the registration drive has translated into student power at the polls.