Contact: Allison Matthews

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State University students are being encouraged to vote in upcoming elections. To help with that effort, the Student Association will collect absentee ballots next Tuesday [Oct. 27] on campus.

Logan Reeves, MSU Student Association secretary and a senior industrial engineering major from Pelahatchie, has been working with Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann on this project to increase student engagement.

“During last year’s hotly contested Senate race, I wasn’t able to travel from Starkville to my home voting precinct, and that really moved an absentee voting initiative to the forefront of my priorities as an elected student official,” Reeves said. “Many other MSU students live too far from campus to make a trip to their respective home voting precincts on election day, which leaves many of our state’s brightest minds with no vote in how our state operates,” he added.

The SA will sponsor MSU’s Absentee Election Day on Lee Boulevard between Colvard Student Union and the YMCA Building. Reeves explained that notaries and a mailing container will be provided on-site to allow students to complete ballots. However, students must have received an absentee ballot in the mail from their respective circuit clerk’s office. More information is available at http://www.sos.ms.gov/Elections-Voting/Pages/County-Election-Info.aspx.

“The event Tuesday is designed to complete the absentee voting process that a student begins when they call their circuit clerk to request an absentee ballot. The student should bring the envelope they receive from their clerk to the event,” Reeves said.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.