HOUSTON — With more than 800 polling locations on Election Day, Harris County worked to make voting as convenient as possible for registered voters. Churches, community centers and college campuses were transformed into polling locations for this epic election cycle.
Rice University just secured its spot in history. It just won Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner’s ‘Early Voting Challenge.’
The mayor challenged colleges and universities to get early voters into the polls. Which ever site drew the largest crowd won the honor. Rice University welcomed more than 13,000 voters during three weeks of early voting.
“This is the first time an early voting location has been held on Rice’s campus,” said Mason Reece. He’s a junior at Rice and is the election judge for the Harris County polling site at Rice stadium.
He’s among two dozen Rice students who are serving their community as election workers.
“We know that students and young people turn out at lower rates than our peer adults and older adults,” said Reece. “There are a number of reasons for this. One, we don’t have locations that are nearby to us that accommodate to us and our busy schedules. We’re not as familiar with the voting process and need additional support. And we don’t as much as systematic representation in our government that motivates us to get out and vote.”
So having college students work elections makes a difference. “There’s also just a simple fact of, my friends want to come out and vote because they know I’m here. And so that’s a really simple, motivational tool.”
Harris county is embracing students as poll workers, allowing them shorter 3.5 hour shifts so the young adults can better balance their schoolwork with their civic service.
“We’re not the leaders of tomorrow, we’re the leaders of today,” said Reece. “And so we’re really excited to get out here and make the difference we can in this.”