For many first-years, registering new voters with the Young Voter Project (YVP) as an Into the Streets orientation activity was a rewarding and worthwhile experience.

For Josh Jorgensen ’08, however, a follow-up stint doing data entry with the YVP has raised questions that the supposedly non-partisan effort may have misled Bush supporters.

The controversy centers on the voting pledges that some voters filled out along with their voter registration cards. Macalester students volunteering with Into the Streets told those who pledged to vote—Kerry and Bush supporters alike—that they would receive a voting reminder with the appropriate polling place information.

Jorgensen enjoyed his experience during Into the Streets so much that he signed up to do data entry for YVP a week later. While he was entering data from a different set of pledges, he was surprised to find that information on Bush supporters was disregarded.

“The intern there told me that she was told to leave out people who checked ‘probably Bush’ or ‘Bush,’” Jorgensen said, referring to a box that queried respondents on their preferred candidate. “And she said it was weird, she admitted that it was weird, but she said she did it anyway.”

The Young Voter Project, an arm of a national political committee called 21st Century Democrats, is a get-out-the-vote effort registered as a non-partisan corporation under Section 527 of the IRS tax code.

It’s one of many so-called 527s that were created to bypass tighter campaign finance restrictions. According to existing campaign finance law, the YVP is not allowed to align with campaigns or endorse specific candidates.

“I noticed a lot of things, because at that time I did not know that it was a partisan group,” Jorgensen said. “So I noticed things that were suspicious, like a poster that spoofs the Bush Administration as Star Wars characters and the phone number of the Kerry-Edwards campaign posted on a bulletin board.”

He soon realized that Bush supporters might not get reminders. Instead of leaving people out, Jorgensen decided to falsify some of the information.

“So I entered everybody's information and if they checked that they were ‘Bush’ or ‘probably Bush’ I entered them as ‘Kerry’ or ‘probably Kerry’ or ‘undecided’ so they wouldn't be left out.”

In the following weeks, Jorgensen brought his concerns to YVP Campus Director Alison Sirny, Assistant Director of the Community Service Office Paul Schadewald, and Molly Bowen ’07, Macalester’s campus organizer for the YVP at the time.

Schadewald first suggested that the YVP send the information on Bush supporters from Into the Streets to a conservative voter registration group, but the YVP opted to process and use the information itself.

Bowen, who also did data entry for the YVP, confirmed that information on Bush supporters is disregarded, but said that Into the Streets was a special case and that the data was handled differently.

In response to Jorgenson’s allegation, the YVP promised that all information would be used in a non-partisan manner.

“We were happy to talk with voters of all persuasions, and will provide polling place information to everyone we spoke with during the Into the Streets Day,” the YVP wrote in an email to Schadewald.

Even after learning that the YVP claims that it abandoned its political bias for Into the Streets, Jorgensen said he doubted whether the Bush supporters he and other first-years had spoken with would receive the reminders.

Sirny declined to comment on the possibility that voters might have been misled, and emphasized that the successful registration effort was the important story.

Sirny would not provide verification that all voters who pledged during Into the Streets would receive the reminders, and did not return a call requesting the name of the worker who would process the information.

Jorgensen, who conceded that he couldn’t prove that the YVP failed to keep its promise, wants the organization to at least admit making a mistake.

“[They should] apologize for basically deceiving first-years into aiding a group that potentially espouses ideals opposite their own,” Jorgensen said. “Right now I'd be satisfied with a simple admission of a mistake.”

The 21st Century Democrats support progressive candidates, avoids Bush supporters during voter registration drives, and use issue-based campaigning to criticize President Bush, according to the group’s web site. The group’s strategies include informing people on the cost of the war in Iraq and the number of jobs lost over the past four years.

A script from a Vote Mob event put on by the YVP instructs volunteers who identify a Bush supporter to say, “Thanks for your time,” without offering registration information.

None of this is illegal, and the possibility that the YVP failed to send reminders to Bush supporters is only a matter of “bad behavior,” according to Associate Professor of Political Science Adrienne Christiansen.

“If you’re going to characterize yourself as non-partisan and tell people you’ll remind them to vote and not follow through, it’s misleading to be sure,” Christiansen said. “I don’t think I’d say it’s illegal, but it’s bad behavior.”

Schadewald said he decided to work with the YVP for Into the Streets only after the group agreed to be non-partisan.

Into the Streets is a mandatory one-day activity for first-years before the start of classes. Students volunteer for various projects organized by the CSO.

“The Young Voter's Project came to me and said, ‘We're an organization that really has a stake in getting young people involved in the political process and getting the word out and getting voter registration and this kind of thing. We're willing to participate in a really non-partisan day of service, not promote a candidate,’” Schadewald said.

So on Sept. 7, around 100 Macalester students from six first-year classes traveled to the University of Minnesota campus to help get out the youth vote. In addition to filling out voter registration cards, the Into the Streets volunteers asked the U of M students to fill out a pledge to vote.

The pledge form asked people to write down their contact information, the issue they found most important in the upcoming election, and which candidate they support. Those who filled out the forms were told that they would receive a reminder to vote along with the address of the appropriate polling place.

“The feedback I got from that day, and from the students who were involved in it really was incredibly, overwhelmingly positive,” Schadewald said. He added that Jorgenson was the only student who complained, and said he believes that the YVP had lived up to its guarantee of maintaining neutrality.