The sun was setting just a half hour after 30 Kutztown University students, staff and faculty began their 5-mile walk to the Maxatawny Township Building polling location Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Walking along the busy Route 222 in the dark did not deter their march, especially since Senate candidate Joe Sestak joined them as a special guest.
Sestak, a former Congressman and Navy admiral, is the 2016 Senate Democratic candidate running against Republican incumbent Pat Toomey. KU student government president Joe Scoboria invited Sestak after hearing he had participated in other walks with students, totaling 422 miles.
“They’re the generation that’s going to have to fix the system that has let them down,” he said of his reason for interacting with college students.
The approximately 5-mile walk began at KU’s Keystone Hall, followed Main Street, continued on the shoulder of Route 222 and ended on Quarry Road at the Maxatawny Township Building. Scoboria first organized the walk in November 2014 after Berks County Commissioners moved the Maxatawny polling location from Keystone Hall to the township building in 2013. The township building is the voting location for Maxatawny residents, which include on-campus KU students and those living at the Edge apartments.
For Scoboria and other students, it was significant that the Berks County Commissioners who moved the polling location were up for reelection. With the continuing state budget impasse delaying grants to students, Scoboria believes even more students are voicing opinions about politics.
“As political as this may seem, student vote is being disenfranchised right now. No matter what party you’re registered to vote, if you’re one of those 4,500 Kutztown students who live on campus, you don’t have a poll in a 5-mile radius,” Scoboria said.
Sestak agrees that both local and state politics are neglecting students.
“How can you actually say, ‘Well students, I’m going to move your polling station down five miles, and, oh by the way, we over here aren’t even going to give you a budget?” he said.
Molly Gallagher, a student government representative, organized a student voter registration event this fall, where more than 200 students registered to vote and 300 wrote postcards about the state budget impasse to Harrisburg.
“Not all 4,500 students may be registered, but the ones that have come to us with the issue and want us to work on it. We are more than willing and very excited for what we are doing today to be the voice that they need.”
Both Sestak and Scoboria were impressed by the turnout of students.
“Look at this. People say students don’t get involved. This is the exact thing we want,” Sestak said.
“As we can look around and see, it’s not just students. It’s faculty, it’s staff, it’s those running for office, those already elected officials,” Scoboria said.
Scoboria also reached out to the community, attending Maxatawny Township and Kutztown Borough meetings and posting on the “Concerned Kutztown Residents” Facebook group, which “caused quite the stir.”
Kutztown residents in the group raised concerns about the students walking on the busy highway. Unlike last year’s trek, the group did not have cars escorting them, and they spent half of their journey in the dark.
For those disagreeing with the students’ highway walk, he said, “When we talk about the greater Kutztown University community, if we talk about economic impact, it’s enormous.”
Scoboria graduates in May 2016 and hopes his successor will continue the event and “have the same enthusiasm as trying to help the 4,500 disenfranchised students.”
Gallagher, a sophomore, wants to continue the event in 2016.
“With the upcoming presidential election, and this is still an issue, I think a lot of students are more interested in what’s going on in government. If they’re able to have a lot more information at their disposal, then they’re going to be more willing to participate,” Gallagher said.
