The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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Friday, November 3, 2017 — 3A

and McFarland’s accounts — 
according to the roommate, no 
one had ever insulted Mansour 
despite 
McFarland 
admitting 

to having called Mansour the 
expletive. He also said he never 
heard a friend say the anti-gay 
chants, 
despite 
McFarland’s 

insisting another friend said 
the slurs. The roommate did, 
however, admit to urinating in 
Mansour’s dog’s bowl.

The witness also said the 

incidents in which the door was 
knifed — also insisting it was 
the night before the Michigan 
State game — were caused by 
a friend from New York that 
had a schizophrenic episode 
after drinking and going off his 
medication.

On 
the 
conflicting 
dates, 

Conlin said he could not see a 
beneficial reason for Mansour to 
lie. He also said he plausibly could 
not see how many people could 
be involved and for the witness’s 
friend to have that burst of energy 
after being intoxicated since the 
afternoon. 

Business junior Serena Brown 

attended the hearing in support 
of Mansour.

“(My friends and I) are in the 

same section as Matthew,” she 
said. “I came to show support to 
someone who is really sweet.”

Mansour later told the Daily he 

was relieved by the verdict.

“I am glad that I am able to 

move back into my apartment, go 
back to my bed,” he said. “(I am 
sad) that there were lies made in 
the court today but the judge saw 
through that pretty clearly and I 
am glad that he gave me the PPO.”

Arnold Reed, who is the father 

of LSA senior Arlyn Reed, one 
of Mansour’s friends, said he 
has known Mansour for many 
years and never known him to 
participate in unruly behavior.

“We are very, very happy,” 

he said. “(Mansour) is a good, 
nice kid ... I am not happy for 
(McFarland) ... but he has to come 
to justice and understanding.”

HEARING
From Page 1A

“One of the things (the Fair 

Elections 
Legal 
Network) 

noticed in trying to help remove 
these barriers to registration 
for 
voting 
for 
underserved 

populations was that students 
were obviously a very big part 
of that,” Burns said. “Back in 
2012 we started the Campus 
Vote Project to have the biggest 
impact on that.”

The Campus Vote Project 

aims to address the issue by 
focusing on voter registration, 
voter 
education 
and 
voter 

turnout efforts all in a non-
partisan or politically-neutral 
way. Last year, the organization 
started a program to train 
colleges to increase these efforts. 
According to Burns, they took 
about 100 statements of interest 
from campuses that wanted 
to participate and ran those 
schools through an educational 
program on how to get students 
to register and turn out to vote.

This year, after reviewing 

feedback and looking at the 
progress each campus made, the 
Campus Vote Project gave the 
designation of ‘Voter Friendly 
Campus’ to 83 institutions. The 
University of Michigan is not 
included on this list.

“We’re 
below 
average, 

Michigan is right now” 

It’s not just local elections 

that 
are 
forgotten 
at 
the 

University. Turnout numbers for 
the 2016 presidential election, 
while 
significantly 
higher, 

were still low among students. 
According 
to 
the 
National 

Study of Learning, Voting and 
Engagement report, only 44.7 
percent 
of 
the 
University’s 

students voted last fall, and only 
68.2 percent were registered.

Professor Edie Goldenberg, a 

former dean of LSA and director 
of the Ford School of Public 
Policy, said she is concerned 
about these figures. At a plenary 
session of the Michigan Political 
Science Association last week, 
she participated in a panel 
of students and faculty from 
schools all over the state on the 
topic of how to increase student 
voting.

“Both 
Oakland 
University 

and Wayne State University 
have higher voter turnout rates 
than University of Michigan and 
Michigan State,” Goldenberg 
said. “It’s our hope that we can 
make our numbers improve and 
become more respectable. We’re 
below average, Michigan is right 
now, based upon our 2016, our 
2014, and our 2012 numbers 
… for large public universities. 
And Michigan doesn’t like to be 
below average in anything.”

This 
low 
turnout 
might 

not be entirely students’ fault. 
According 
to 
Goldenberg, 

Michigan’s 
voting 
laws 
are 

unfriendly compared to other 
states’. Michigan is classified 
by voting advocacy group Rock 
the Vote as a “blocker,” the 
category of states that make it 
most difficult for their residents 
to vote. Michigan doesn’t have 

same-day registration, online 
registration — all things that 
make it easier for people, and 
especially students, to vote.

“Obviously it’s not the only 

reason, because Wayne State 
and Oakland did it, and they’re 
in Michigan also,” Goldenberg 
said. “The Wayne State Student 
Government is very active; our 
student government has been 
very active. But we’re all working 
together now on this Big 10 
Voting challenge, and I think 
that Michigan will do much 
better going forward because we 
have support from the President 
on down, really.”

The Big 10 Voting Challenge, 

an initiative started by University 
President Mark Schlissel, has 
turned voter turnout into a 
competition among the fourteen 
schools in the Big 10 Conference. 
The winner will be determined 
based on which school has the 
highest turnout rate in the 2018 
midterm elections.

This is just one way the 

University is working to change 
the voting narrative on campus. 
Goldenberg is also working 
with a group of about forty 
students and faculty on the Turn 
Up Turnout initiative, which 
partners with TurboVote to get 
students registered quickly and 
runs workshops for college and 
high school students to promote 
voter education, and also puts a 
tab for registration on Wolverine 
Access.

“We set up tables at every 

orientation session this summer 
for new students and we helped 
them access TurboVote and 
get signed up,” she said. “This 
means that in the mail, they’ll 
receive a voter registration card 
that is partially filled out, along 
with a stamped envelope. It also 
will provide them with election 
reminders (for wherever they 
register). We helped provide 
access to about 15,000 students 
this summer, and we’ve been 
looking for opportunities to 
table since then.”

One of the things Goldenberg 

and the Turn Up Turnout team 
have discovered is that certain 
groups of students are more 
likely to vote than others. STEM 
students, for example, vote at 
an even lower rate than that of 
the entire University. Music, 
Theatre & Dance junior David 
Kamper, 
a 
science 
student 

himself, is working with Turn 
Up Turnout and science policy 
organization 
314Action 
to 

develop programs that will 
directly target the University’s 
students in the sciences to show 
them how important their vote 
is.

“Science students are among 

the worst student voter turnout, 
just due to classes and the 
questions about applicability,” 
Kamper said. “One of our 
initiatives we’re gonna really 
hit hard come January 2018 is 
‘From Lab to Booth,’ where we 
get scientists in the community 
and scientists in the University 
to get out of the lab and back into 
the voting booth.”

Kamper is still registered 

to vote at home in Minnesota, 

but plans on changing his 
registration to Ann Arbor for 
next year’s midterm elections.

“Voting and understanding 

issues goes completely beyond 
just voting for president every 
four years.” 

Even with the increased rates 

of registration Goldenberg and 
her team are trying to promote, 
many students like Kamper are 
choosing to register in their 
hometowns. This only furthers 
the lack of student involvement 
in Ann Arbor politics.

Proving this point, Enrique 

Zalamea, an LSA senior and 
president of the University’s 
chapter of College Republicans, 
is registered in New Jersey. He 
said, though, his organization 
has done work for local elections 
in the past. While they are 
not campaigning for any City 
Council candidates this year 
(there are no Republicans on 
the ballot), they have canvassed 
for 
gubernatorial 
candidates 

and state Senate candidates. 
Zalamea thinks part of the 
reason students are so inactive 
when it comes to local elections 
is because local officials aren’t 
reaching out to them.

“I suppose you can take a 

look at it in terms of the lack of 
inaction from college students 
in local level politics might be 
because people from that level 
don’t reach out to us,” Zalamea 
said. “The Colbeck for Governor 
campaign reached out to us … 
If anyone from the local City 
Council wanted to come speak 
to us, then we’d be more than 
happy to, if they wanted us to 
volunteer for us or canvass, we’d 
be more than happy to do that as 
well. It’s been kind of silent on 
their part.”

Public Policy senior Rowan 

Conybeare, 
chair 
of 
the 

University’s chapter of College 
Democrats, is also registered 
to vote elsewhere. She said her 
group has also not officially 
helped 
with 
any 
Council 

campaigns this year, though 
they have been contacted about 
supporting ballot initiatives.

“We have been reached out 

to on a few ballot initiatives that 
are going up,” Conybeare said. 
“We have not endorsed any. But 
if someone reaches out to me and 
asks if they can come talk about 
a city issue, we always work with 
them to inform our members 
and get the word out.”

This idea of “getting the word 

out” seems to be both the most 
important and most challenging 
piece of the puzzle for those who 
are involved in city politics. LSA 
senior Jeremy Glick sits on the 
City Council Student Advisory 
Committee, and he said the 
committee 
is 
talking 
about 

not just how to get students 
registered, but how to get them 
informed.

“This is obviously something 

we’re taking on with this new 
registration challenge, but it’s 
something we’ve also talked 
about as well — about informing 
students of what’s going on 
at a local level,” Glick said. 
“Especially when things like 
rent prices, where buildings are, 

how many units are available are 
so important to us as students 
are really formed at the council 
level … One of the biggest things 
I wish students would realize, 
especially those who aren’t 
from Michigan, or from this 
part of Michigan, is that voting 
and understanding issues goes 
completely beyond just voting 
for president every four years.”

LSA junior Sam Weinberg is 

another member of the small 
minority of students involved 
in local politics. Serving as the 
field director for Jared Hoffert’s 
City Council campaign in Ann 
Arbor’s 2nd Ward, Weinberg 
echoed Glick’s message.

“I think there’s a lot of focus 

— by all people but especially 
young people — to focus on a 
higher voter turnout in national 
elections 
rather 
than 
state 

elections,” Weinberg said. “But 
a lot of change can occur in 
local elections, which I think is 
underappreciated … I just wish 
voter turnout was a lot higher.”

“I don’t think students 

realize how much power they 
have in town.”

Among 
City 
Council 

candidates 
themselves, 
the 

views on student involvement 
are mixed.

Ann Arbor resident Diane 

Giannola, currently running for a 
Ward 4 seat on City Council, told 
The Daily in a video interview 
last week that she doesn’t feel 
most of the city’s issues actually 
apply to students.

“There’s only specific items 

that are relevant to students,” 
Giannola said. “I think people 
make too big of a deal about 
students not voting, because 
I think most students still 
have their licenses at their 
home address, which is where 
they’re politically involved… I 
understand that students don’t 
care about it. There’s nothing 
that’s gonna get them out to vote. 
But they can have a big impact 
on those things that are right 
around campus. But they have to 
want to have an impact. We can’t 
make them come out to vote.”

ELECTION
From Page 1A

leader of the resistance for all 14 … 
but I’m tired of being the leader of 
the resistance. It is time for us to 
start setting the agenda.”

Rowan Conybeare, a Public 

Policy senior and the chair of College 
Democrats, said the attendance 
at recent events for gubernatorial 
candidates is encouraging and 
could be a sign that Democrats will 
win back seats in 2018.

“I’m really excited that the 

various gubernatorial candidates 
have wanted to come speak with us. 
She is our third,” Conybeare said. 
“I think we need to be careful, but 
I think it could be indicative of the 
democratic wave that everyone is 
talking about in 2018. I do not think 
it is a given. I think that students, 
Democrats and Michigan as a whole 
need to work just as hard as we 
would have if we had won in 2016.”

An issue at the center of the 

race is preventing post college 
brain drain. In an interview with 
the Daily, Whitmer discussed the 
importance of making college more 
affordable and, at some point, free.

“One of the things that I worked 

on as a senate Democratic leader, 
I authored a plan that I called 
the Michigan 2020 plan which 
would’ve provided free four-year 
college for every Michigan student,” 
Whitmer said. “That was something 
that I’ve always been a champion 
of and I know what that means 
for young people pursuing their 
dreams. … I think if we create those 
opportunities here, that’s one of the 
most important things we can do to 
keeping young talent in Michigan.”

Following 
the 
monologue, 

Whitmer spent majority of the 
event answering questions from the 
audience. In many of the questions, 
especially 
when 
compared 
to 

Democratic 
candidate 
Abdul 

El-Sayed, Whitmer emphasized 
the amount of experience she 
has in state government and how 
that gives her a leg up on other 
candidates.

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

CAMPAIGN
From Page 1A

