The Write Stuff: Kelley Ritz
Heather Martin

Walking around campus this fall, a person could almost feel something different in the air. The campus climate was different -- invigorated, electric. With more than a dozen events centering on the 2008 election, the campus was buzzing with conversation about the possibilities for our future. Student political interest and involvement was at an all-time high.

But many students, often first-time voters, were unsure, not about their preferred candidates, but how to vote for their candidates. Confusion over absentee ballots, identification requirements, and polling locations are all too common barriers to electoral participation among college students.

Kelley Ritz and her dedicated team at GO VOTE were determined to make the voices of DU students heard in the 2008 election. The student organization Getting Out the Voices of the Youth in Elections, or GO VOTE, was founded in 2007 with the hope of increasing student participation in the political process at the national, local, and campus levels. The brainchild of five students enrolled in the Pioneer Leadership Program and the result of a 30-page community change initiative, GO VOTE successfully registered over 200 DU students and provided countless others with essential information about polling places, ID requirements, and other FAQs.

I met with Kelley Ritz, the bright and energetic founder and president of GO VOTE, just a week after the presidential election; amazingly, she was still energized and ready to move on to the next project.

GO VOTE is a great way to give back to a community that has given me so much, Ritz tells me as we chat on the grass in front of Penrose. Ritz is a Boettcher Scholar and a double major in economics and Russian. She is a fifth-generation Coloradoan and a first-generation college student. I grew up on a farm, with a very hard-working family. There wasnt a lot of money for college, so education was everything, Ritz says. Her father had a stroke at age 43, and her family experienced some tough times as a result. But through those struggles, she learned about working hard and staying focused on a goal.

Ritz is an avid writer and while she admits that writing is a challenge, she assures me that its an enjoyable one. She tells me that she spends a lot of time in the mental planning stages where she works through problems and develops a better sense of what she wants to say. Writing is also a regular part of her role as president of GO VOTE. For the election, the organization produced fliers on the candidates and on the when, where, and how of voting. We are focused on knowledgeable voting at all levels, Ritz says, and we wanted to target a broad range of students. Crafting fliers that accomplish these goals was no small task. Ritz says that GO VOTE has gotten lots of positive feedback and, unlike many other get-out-the-vote orgs found around campus this fall, GO VOTE is a long-term and consistent enterprise, promoting a US voter turnout as well as informing students about local elections.

Ritz seems to be a consummate optimist -- down-to-earth and dead-set on making a difference. I am excited to see what my future holds, she tells me. And Im sure Im not alone in my sentiment when I turn to her and say, Me too!

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