It was an image not often seen in the world of politics. In the Schine Student Center Atrium Monday, banners for two of the competing Democratic presidential hopefuls, Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and John Edwards (D-N.C.), hung side-by-side from a table heaped with literature from both campaigns.

The table, sponsored by Syracuse University’s College Democrats, is part of a push by campus groups to get students to vote in today’s contest, no matter which candidate they choose.

‘I was very impressed by the way they ran that,’ said Jessica Klos, president of the College Democrats, commenting on the cooperation between student groups supporting the two candidates.

Front-runners Kerry and Edwards, along with Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and the Rev. Al Sharpton, square off today in the Super Tuesday primaries, which will choose the delegates for ten states, including New York.

Along with student political groups, representatives from the New York State Public Interest Research Group are trying to get all eligible students to head to the polls.

‘We’ve been working to reach out to students to remind them that the election is going on,’ said Sean Vormwald, project coordinator for NYPIRG’s SU and State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry chapter.

In addition to manning their own table in Schine, NYPIRG’s student supporters have been writing messages about the primary on classroom blackboards and calling students who registered to vote with the group.

‘As always, we’re a non-partisan organization, so we don’t care who students are voting for as long as they’re going out to the polls,’ Vormwald said.

Even for partisan groups like the College Democrats, voter turnout seems to be a bigger concern than drumming up support for a particular contender. The group is co-sponsoring the table in Schine so that the unregistered groups of Kerry and Edwards supporters are spared university fees. Kucinich and Sharpton’s campaigns are not represented at the table since they lack a student support group on campus, said Klos, a junior political science and philosophy major.

The College Democrats’ most serious campaigning will begin once the nominee is chosen to face President George W. Bush in the race for the White House this fall.

‘The overwhelming sense of the Democratic Party is everybody just wants Bush out of office,’ Klos said.

For now, however, the group just wants to make sure that students are adequately informed about the candidates and the process of primary voting. ‘While we’re told to vote at our age, we’re not really told how to go about doing it,’ Klos said.

Many students also have questions about where to vote, something Kerry and Edwards supporters are trying to rectify by providing information on polling place locations, said Kasia Witkowski, president of Students for Kerry and a senior political science and policy studies major.

Joe Kummer, an SU graduate student, stopped by the table in Schine Monday to find out where his wife Shelley could register her vote. The couple moved to the university area last week.

‘Either way, she’s going to vote somewhere,’ Kummer said.

Unfortunately for Kummer and many other students registered in Syracuse, that somewhere won’t be on campus. The Onondaga County Board of Elections and the Common Council decided last October to move the Schine polling place to a location in Thornden Park, after residents voiced concerns about parking on campus.

NYPIRG is kicking off its campaign today to get the polling place moved back to Schine, Vormwald said. The group is working with the SU’s Office of Government and Community Relations to alleviate the parking situation and give students easier access to voting.

‘We are encouraging the university to work with the Board of Elections and Common Council to come up with some solutions,’ Vormwald said.

Published on March 1, 2004 at 12:00 pm