With only a day to go until the election, feminist campus groups in California, Colorado and South Dakota are stepping up their campaigns to remind fellow students about several significant initiatives on the ballot in their respective states. Propositions 4 and 8 in California, Amendment 48 in Colorado and Initiated Measure 11 in South Dakota would all have damaging impacts on women’s and LGBT rights if passed.
Proposition 4 would require parental notification before minors could access abortions, and Proposition 8 would amend the state constitution to ban now-legal same-sex marriage. Amendment 48 would give full civil rights to fertilized human eggs, while Measure 11 would ban abortions.
Many students are voting for the first time in this presidential race and may not even know about the ballot measures, so student campaigners will be carrying signs and handing out leaflets outside of campus polling locations to explain why the measures are dangerous.
According to the Feminist Majority Foundation’s West Coast Campus Organizer Allie McDonald, the FMF is focusing its efforts on students “because we know that they are overwhelmingly pro-women’s rights and pro-LGBT rights, and their support is vital to defeat these propositions.” With the tracking polls dead even, in California especially, students’ votes could well prove the margin of difference.
In California, students from 28 campuses will be campaigning against Props. 4 and 8 at more than 100 polling locations. Students from seven major colleges in Colorado will campaign against Amendment 48, and students from seven campuses in South Dakota will be working on election day to defeat Measure 11.
