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Welcome to The 1909, the podcast that takes an in-depth look at The State News’ biggest stories of the week, while bringing in new perspectives from the reporters who wrote them.
It's Wednesday, October 9th, and this is the 19 09 State News's Weekly podcast featuring our reporters talking about the news. I'm your host, Alex Walters. This week, students are pushing for a solution to a long time problem. Young people don't vote. Their proposed answer?
Alex:No classes on election day. Here to tell us all about it, once again, is our politics reporter, Emilio. Thanks for having me, Alex. 2 weeks in a row. Back to the show.
Alex:2 weeks. That's crazy. I mean, don't get used to it. It's an election season. You have kind of an outsized influence around here, but, but I'm happy to have you.
Alex:You know? It's good to see you as always. But yeah. So you you've been very busy. You've written a great number of stories, but we're here to talk about just Waterfall.
Alex:Don't get too eager about classes on election day or a lack thereof as students would like. So tell me, you wrote a lot about this kind of push that's going on. We'll get into that. But first of all, for those listening who aren't MSU students, what are the challenges of an election day at MSU? What does it look like?
Alex:Why aren't these people voting? Right.
Emilio:I mean, we can probably just start broadly and talk about young voters in general. I mean, they don't like to go to the polls often,
Alex:and
Emilio:it's for a variety of reasons. Right? A lot of them just lead busy lives or might not view voting as, you know, a really big priority in their lives. Mhmm. But then as we move to more of an MSU centric view, I mean, voting here is kinda hard.
Emilio:We go back to 2022 in the midterm elections. Students were in lines for hours. I think Summit Brody didn't get their ballots in until 11 PM that night. So if you're interested in voting, I mean, there are some serious hurdles on top of classes and work and all those sort of things that students might be having that day.
Alex:I mean, if you're voting in person on campus, that's kinda your day. You might end up in line for hours and hours. I remember certain, like, actual candidates were coming and bringing water and phone chargers to try and encourage people in line to stay in line, not get out of line. It was it was a whole scene. Yeah.
Alex:So then tell me about you wrote about a group of students that have gotten together and are trying to solve some of these issues. They're not necessarily, I guess, a partisan group one way or the other as I understand it. They're just trying to encourage students in general to participate politically to vote. Tell me about this group.
Emilio:Right. So these are 2 student organizers, Visalia Fciev and Madison Russell. They're from a group called Unpack, as an un and then pack like political action. Like
Alex:not unpack like a box.
Emilio:Exactly.
Alex:UNPAC. UNPAC. Like, they're not a political action committee. They're not a political action committee.
Emilio:Not a political action committee. And their group is kinda focused on, just increasing democratic participation and getting young people excited to, again, get involved democratically. And, yeah, their whole angle is that classes should not be held on on election day because it's a serious impediment to voting for a lot of students.
Alex:So the idea would be if students had the day off, they would be more willing to take time and actually go through with voting than they would otherwise. Yeah.
Emilio:And they they'd simply have more time to get you know, they'd have the whole day instead of just, let's say, you have, you know, your classes get done at 5 PM and then you only have after that. You have the whole day instead.
Alex:Yeah. And that's their central kind of demand from university. Yeah.
Emilio:That's what they're looking for anyways.
Alex:One, is that something that I I guess, what exactly are they asking for? Is that something that someone in the administration can just do, or is that part of, like, a complicated larger process?
Emilio:So it's complicated because Yeah. The academic calendar is a it's it's a sensitive subject. And it take and there's a lot of people who want their, their input reflected in how it turns out. Right? You've got the faculty senate.
Emilio:You have ASMSU. You have all sorts of, administrative people who want its turnout in a certain way.
Alex:When it's set, as I understand it, very specifically, like, years in advance. Like, this isn't just something that's kinda done.
Emilio:Right. Exactly. And there's task committees that have to be formed. In general, it's a slow moving process. And for these guys, for example, we're they're not imagining that these changes they're proposing would be in effect for this election cycle.
Emilio:This is something that they're kinda just getting the ball rolling right now and to find success in, you know, years to come.
Alex:So, you know, right now, there's, like, maybe an increased interest in this kind of thinking because it's a presidential election year, but they're not necessarily aiming for by, you know, 3 weeks from now when the election actually happens that this is a thing that MSU has done. Right. But that would be ideal, I guess.
Emilio:Yeah. They'd like that for sure.
Alex:Yeah. But it's, you know, maybe a longer term goal, and right now there's more interest in it.
Emilio:Mhmm. Right now, they're just trying to get students kind of engaged with the idea. Yeah. And, again, like, create that appetite for that sort of change for that in a couple of years when it is feasible to get it, there's sufficient student appetite for that sort of thing.
Alex:Well, it'll be interesting if, you know, as it is probably likely that if it doesn't come together for this November to see in, you know, a real presidential election year what the lines look like. Obviously, it's different now with higher absentee voting and, you know, mail in voting. There'll be a really interesting kind of case study for them, right, of, like, how does this actually play out?
Emilio:Yeah.
Alex:But what about this? Speaking of case studies, I mean, this isn't a unique proposal. You've wrote about how other schools have done this. Right? Right.
Alex:Yeah.
Emilio:I mean, you look at Wayne State, for example, right, which is in Detroit. They, a couple of years ago, faced this sort of same problem. A lot of students they have a slightly different situation because Wayne State has a lot of commuter students, but a lot of students were complaining about the difficulties of voting on campus. So the student senate there decided to kind of push the administration to 1, open up a voting location on campus and then also cancel classes on that day. And that kind of succeeded for a couple of reasons.
Emilio:But most importantly, was just the fact that a lot of people's interests aligned really well at that specific moment. For the students, it was the fact that they wanted to have classes off on the days that they could vote. The administration was really interested in kind of reaffirming its its commitment to civil rights and and democracy. And then the city Detroit was into it because, well, they just like another voting location to be open for students.
Alex:So there might have been more kind of universal buy in there. And, also, you said this went through like a student government process there. Does Unpack at MSU have that same kind of buy in or relationship with the undergraduate student government ASMSU?
Emilio:No. Unpack is a a group that kind of exists outside of that administrative body. And so that's kind of where one of their first challenges comes up is how do you get your idea from an outside group to, you know, into the administrative body. And one way that they're doing that right now is through just trying to demonstrate student interest. They're out.
Emilio:They're canvassing in different residence halls and academic buildings. They're trying to collect student signatures just to show that the that there is enough student interest in this idea.
Alex:Is there a lack of appetite from the undergraduate student body as it stands right now or the government?
Emilio:I think right now, there's not enough proof from it. There's not enough proof of it. Obviously, the point of getting these signatures is to kinda have, like, a an actual document that demonstrates this many students want this change, and they're willing to sign a piece of paper saying that they want it.
Alex:There was just a sort of proof that students actually would use that extra time to vote and whatnot and not just a great day off.
Emilio:Right. Exactly.
Alex:Not that standing in line to vote all day is not a great day off.
Emilio:My dream.
Alex:Yeah. Well, but what about this? So the the politics are a little bit different than that of Wayne State. It might have been easier there. I saw recently totally outside of Michigan, Ohio State did this.
Alex:And then there was an interesting, kinda throwing a hat in the ring from Barb Byram, the local clerk. What did she say? She's into this idea? Right.
Emilio:Yeah. So Ingham County Clerk Barb Byram tweets out just saying like, hey. Ohio State just announced that class are gonna be canceled this November. And then just, you know you know, ads Kevin Guskowitz saying, hey. You should maybe get in on this.
Emilio:Yeah. But we'll really have to see where the ball gets from that. We haven't really seen anything out of MSU as to which direction they're leaning.
Alex:That's an interesting sort of local endorsement from Right. It is. Relatively powerful figure. Mhmm. Well, Emilio, thanks for telling us about this very interesting proposal.
Alex:If students are interested, I'm sure they can find, unpack, and get into this effort. But yeah. So that's all for now, and we'll be back next week with fresh reporting from the great minds here at the state news. Hopefully, not Emilio for a 3rd week in a row. But maybe.
Alex:I don't know. He keeps writing great stories.
Emilio:You're sick.
Alex:One about project 2025 was good. Vigil's story was good. But yeah. So until then, the story we discussed and plenty of others are available at statenews.com. Thank you to Emilio for coming on again.
Alex:Thank you to my podcast coordinator, Taylor, who's doing a great job. Most of all, thank you for listening. The 19:0:9, I'm Alex Walters.