Student Government hosted a Civic Engagement 101 event to prepare students for the 2020 election cycle Tuesday in the Pioneer Room of the Memorial Union.

Story County Auditor Lucy Martin presented at the event, as well as Carolyn Klaus from the Ames League of Women Voters. The event was an informal conversation regarding topics such as how to vote, voting registration policies, absentee ballots and registration deadlines.

Martin spoke about how active of a campus and a city Ames is, especially due to the precinct lines. Precinct lines are drawn according to census data rather than number of registered voters in the area.

“Right now [Buchanan] is an overcrowded precinct because they only do the census every 10 years, but we are getting the the end of that 10 year period,” Martin said.

Klaus talked about the importance of being informed on issues that candidates might base their platforms on and how most election cycles will have at least one issues to purposefully draw out the student vote.

“It’s interesting how [candidates] will bring up an issue to just to bring out the students to register and vote,” Klaus said.

Klaus spoke about Ames League of Women Voters’ actions in the political sphere and the information they have for people to utilize, such as biographies of local candidates that may not have their own campaign website and phone numbers for state and community leaders.

Klaus said the league “welcomes students with no dues,’ and that the League of Women Voters is not a female-exclusive group.

Klaus and Martin both took questions from the audience and explained that people can register at the door at a caucus, how to update voter registration, that people must be in the auditor’s office 11 days before or their registration will be considered same-day and resources for students.

Martin explained some rules and regulations that pertain to students and faculty voting on campus. A person who wants to vote must provide proof of identity before being given a ballot and if they cannot use an approved method, they must provide proof of residency as well as identification.

One can show proof of residency on their phone but can’t show proof of identification on a phone. AccessPlus’s “Voter Reg Address”, if a student is voting on campus, can act as a proof of residency.

ISU ID do not count as a proof of identification because they do not have an expiration date, but high school IDs or college IDs that do have an expiration date would work.