Creating Your Vision

What is your vision for the campus and/or community?

Mine Vote is a campus voting initiative designed to register, educate, and engage campus voters in the 2008 election.

Assessing Your Campus and Community

What campus/community problem does your blueprint address? What structures, practices and policies institutionalize the problem?

The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a large commuter school on the U.S.-Mexico border. Even though UTEP excels in many areas, it lacks in disseminating information and resources to students about voting.

What communities will you work with?

• Campus community
• Local community

Setting Goals and Deliverables

• Goal 1: We aim to register at least 5,000 UTEP students
• Well will count and turn in 5,000 voter registration cards
• 25- 30 volunteers to help us with the registration effort
• Goal 2: We aim to provide voter information guide for student voting (i.e. precinct locations)
• Launch a website with helpful voter information
• We will hold 15 voter guide presentations (averaging 3 a week in October) to UNIV 1301 classes
• We will be able to reach 450-750 students
• We will train 25 student volunteers to give presentations
• Goal 3: UTEP students will then go out and vote (UTEP is designated as an early voting site).
• Recruit 100 students to be Poll Workers for the Fall election (this will include Early Voting as well as Election Day).
• On the website, we will email students a survey to see who voted, and also see how many students were also poll workers though the Border Poll Crew program.

What is your primary approach? Leadership and Capacity Building

Why did you choose this approach?

Mine Vote will use Leadership and Capacity building as our primary approach. By recruiting students to go and make the UNIV 1301 classes, they will not only educating their fellow Miners, but they will also build self esteem and confidence of making a presentation.

What will your tactics and activities be?

Mine Vote will operate under the Center for Civic Engagement and will be offered to students through the service learning program, Vote Now! As well as an alternate to the program, Border Poll Crew.

Registration- We will have informational booths in the student union as well as in Leech Groove and other places of high student traffic and hand out voter registration cards and ask students to turn them in.

Education- We will make information presentations to UNIV 1301 classes as well as launch our website to hand out voting information.

Engagement- We will encourage students to vote at UTEP during early voting, when there is a mobile voting site. We will also encourage students to be a part of the Border Poll Crew where they will be trained as poll workers to work the elections.

Connecting Back to Vision

How does your strategy contribute to your vision for your campus and/or your community?

By the end of the program, we will hope to have registered at least 5,000 new voters. We also hope to increase awareness and information about voting and encourage young people to be more civically engaged.

Resources and skills you will need

What skills do you need for this approach?

We believe that YP4 will be able to assist gain the following resources and skills: Networking, Presentation skills, trainings on how to get young voters and Latino/ Hispanic voters engaged to vote. We will be asking for media support as well connections to national, state, and local partners, fellows, and resources. We will have office space on campus in the Center for Civic Engagement and be able to use their resources and equipment. Please see attached budget.