Vote Boat cruises to IU

A man with an eye patch and a pirate hat approached freshman Leah Neff, the boat behind him swaying back and forth in the 10th Street wind.

“Arrrghhhh you registered to vote?” he bellowed, clipboard and pen in hand. The pirate, senior Brendon Liner, was just one of many volunteers throughout campus registering students to vote before Monday’s deadline.

Neff, a native Hoosier who said she has not voted before, filled out the black-and-white form and gave it to another volunteer.

Liner, president of the Indiana Public Interest Research Group, and other members of INPIRG spent Thursday afternoon at the intersection of 10th Street and Fee Lane.

“This is part of our New Voters project, which is to get students registered to vote nationwide,” Liner said. “Our goal is to register 3,000 voters through our events on campus, and we’re also doing door-to-door canvassing and canvassing in the dorms.”

As Liner and a few volunteers registered students at the “Vote Boat” event, small groups of students reported back from other locations on campus, bringing back small stacks of new-voter registration forms.

The large number reflects both the high national interest in November’s elections and increased interest from young people, especially college students.

“I care who is our president,” Neff said. “This is the first time I’m voting, and I already know who I’m voting for.”

INPIRG members will be back out with the Vote Boat, as well as knocking on students’ doors, until Monday’s deadline. Liner said his group is different from other political groups on campus because it doesn’t endorse a candidate.

“This election is paramount, and Indiana especially, this is one of the first years that the status quo here could be changed, and students will help decide if Indiana stays a red state or goes blue for the first time since 1964,” he said.

Senior James Stout, another volunteer, said he wants to get students to register because politics are important and voting is the way to “make our voices heard.” Stout, also wearing an eye patch and pirate hat, said he doesn’t spend a lot of time volunteering, but said he made it a priority for this year’s election because “things are changing and this is a very important time.”

As the sun started to set over the Arboretum, Liner, Stout and the other volunteers kept up their pirate yells. Some of the students walking by laughed, realized they needed to register or just looked up in bewilderment, while others turned away, turned up their iPods or quickly took out their cell phones and started talking.

“Some people don’t want anything to do with us,” Stout said. “But most people realize we’re just trying to get people to the polls.”