It’s officially fall! For UW-Madison students, that means game days, changing colors, new exciting classes and election season. While you and your fellow classmates are navigating new buildings and getting ready to be spooked on Halloween, college dropout Scott Walker is worrying about something he thinks is even more spooky — An Educated Population That Votes.
Scott has handled these crazy kids before. He got right down to business when he was elected governor in 2010 and immediately switched the regular dates for Wisconsin primary elections from mid-September to mid-August during the exact dates when many student leases begin. He found that students do not worry themselves with elections when they are traveling or busy shoving everything they own under a bunk bed. His valiant achievements through Wisconsin’s voter ID laws cannot be forgotten either, which deterred at least 17,000 voters from the 2016 presidential election. As for students, UW-Madison voter percentage actually dropped by 4.3 percent from 2012 to 2016, while campuses across the country increased by 3 percent.
However, the upcoming gubernatorial election does not feel like it will have the same results. UW-Madison has signed on to take part in the Big Ten Voting Challenge to encourage voter registration through competition with the other Big Ten institutions, and groups such as the Associated Students of Madison, The Morgridge Center For Public Service and University Housing are making big strides in encouraging election participation. In a last-ditch effort, Scott Walker is pooling all his efforts into a huge initiative to pull students away from the polls.
He picked up a little cat named Marcy from Animart, and she will be sitting on the Capitol Square steps by the intersection of State and Carroll. She is one year old and has orange fur with white booties on her feet. Sometimes she meows, and according to Walker’s campaign chair, Michael Grebe, “It’s really cute.” She will be there the day of the election the entire time the polls are open.
If you are interested in spending the day with Marcy, she will be downtown the entire time the polls are open on Tuesday, November 6th, for a one-time only engagement.
