Extra Credit Assignment

Civic Engagement Extra Credit

Although I’d like to, I’m not legally allowed to give you extra credit for voting in the upcoming election. However, I did still want to tie this course’s extra credit assignment to your engagement with the election.

The first part of this document offers detailed info about registering and voting here in Texas as well as a bit of advice for out of state students. The last page explains the extra credit assignment for our class.

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Important Deadlines 2018 Elections

Primary Election (February – March) (already over)

Last day to register to vote: Feb. 5th

Last day to Request an Absentee Ballot: February 23rd

Early Voting for the Primaries: February 20th – March 2nd.

Election Day: March 6th

Primary Runoff Election (May) (already over)

Last Day to Register: April 23rd

Runoff Election Day for the Primaries: May 22nd

General Election (October – November)

Last day to register to vote: October 9th.

Last day to Request an Absentee Ballot: October 26th

Early Voting: October 22nd – November 2nd

Election Day: November 6th

Extra Credit Assignment

Extra Credit Assignment: Due November 5th by 11:59pm in Blackboard (late submission not accepted)

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Registering to Vote by October 9th

How to Register

If you have not yet registered to vote, you can do so until October 9th for the November election if you are a Texas resident.

In Texas, students attending college may register at their campus address or choose to remain registered or register at their permanent or home address. However, you may only be registered and vote in one location.

You can register at your county’s Voter Registrar’s Office (often the County Clerk). You can also register by main by printing the registration form from this website and mailing it to your county’s registrar. If you have any trouble locating the proper info for your county, I’d be happy to help you track that down.

Checking Your Registration Status and Address

This website also has an “Am I Registered” tool that allows you to check your registration status. That system will not only tell you whether you are registered, it will also verify the address that the state has on file for you, and the county that you are registered in.

Knowing where you are registered is important because in Texas you CANNOT vote in a county other than the one you are registered in. So if you are registered in a county other than Nueces, you won’t be able to vote here. Your options in that case are to travel back to your home county to vote, request an absentee ballot (a ballot that allows you to vote by mail) from that county and vote by mail, or the change your registration to this county. The deadline for changing your address is the same as the one to register (Oct. 9th) for the November election.

Out of State Students

If you are a resident of another state, you can easily find out how to register by Googling “voter registration in (your state).” That type of search will also help you find out how to request an absentee ballot (a ballot that allows you to vote by mail). If you are unsure about any of this, I’m very happy to help you find the necessary info, just stop by my office hours. Note that, just like in Texas, you might not have much time to register in your state or request and absentee ballot.

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Voting

Early Voting in the fall

There will be early voting polling places open around the county from October 22nd to November 2nd. The full list of those times and places is available from the County Clerk’s office.

See the ID requirements section below for details on what type of ID you will need in order to vote.

Voting on Nov. 6th

On Election Day, Tuesday November 6th, you can vote at any one of the voting locations around the county.

ID Requirements

In 2011, Texas passed into law a strict voter ID law. In 2016, a federal court ruled that the law violated the Voting Rights Act and Texas was forced to make changes to it. Those changes mean that people without a valid ID can still vote if they show other evidence of their address such as a bill or a bank statement.

However, while the state is making accommodations for people who do not have a valid form of ID, if you have one you still must bring it. You don’t want to give anyone any opportunity to keep you from voting (or from counting your vote). So when you vote bring one of the following forms of ID:

· Texas driver license issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS)

· Texas Election Identification Certificate issued by DPS

· Texas personal identification card issued by DPS

· Texas license to carry a handgun issued by DPS

· United States military identification card containing the person’s photograph

· United States citizenship certificate containing the person’s photograph

· United States passport

Note that your TAMU-CC ID doesn’t count. If you do not possess any of these types of ID, you can read this website to find out what you’ll need to do in order to vote.

Voting by Mail (Texas Residents)

If you aren’t registered in Nueces County and don’t plan to return to your home county on election day or during one of their early voting days, you have two choices. First, you could change your registration to your address here in Nueces County. See the registration section above for details on that.

Alternately, if you want to vote in your home county, you can ask for an absentee ballot (Texas calls this “Ballot by Mail.” If you fill out and send this form to your county’s Voter Registrar’s office, they will mail a ballot to your local address. You fill it out and then mail it back to them. This link lists all the county government websites for Texas. It may take some poking around, but you should be able to find the details for where to send the application to in your county. If you can’t find that info, feel free to ask me for help. I’d be happy to track it down.

Applications for Ballot by Mail must be received by your county’s Voter Registrar by October 26th. And after they send you the ballot, you need to have it back to them by Election Day, November 6th. Note that both of those deadlines refer to the day they receive it, not the day you mail it. So mail it back as soon as you get it.

Voting by Mail (Residents of Other U.S. States or Territories)

If you aren’t a Texas resident you’ll need to either visit your home state to vote or apply for an absentee ballot (a ballot that allows you to vote by mail). Each state has its own rules, procedures, and deadlines for getting an absentee ballot so you’ll want to find out ASAP how to do that. If you have trouble figuring it out, ask me and I’ll be happy to help.

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Non-Partisan Voter Resources and Information

It can be very difficult to tell good from bad information about the issues and the candidates since the internet is chock full of horrible BS about every issue and about most politicians. Learning to judge the quality of information is one of the things we work on in our class, and that you’ll encounter in other Core Curriculum classes at TAMU-CC. It is our great hope that you’ll leave the college much better prepared to research and understand the important issues of our time and better prepared to understand the rhetoric used by politicians who want your vote. But since many of you are not yet experts in judging the quality of the information you find online, I wanted to provide a short list of organizations that have reputations for providing unbiased and non-partisan (not supporting either party) information about candidates and political issues.

League of Women Voters (Voter Guides and Info)

National: http://lwv.org/

Corpus Christi: http://www.lwv-cc.org/

The League’s Voter Guides are an invaluable resource in a state like Texas where it can be very very difficult to find any information at all about a candidate in a local or state race. The League asks each candidate to submit answers to a questionnaire. Those answers are published in the voter guide. The Voter Guide for the general election is not published yet but you should check this website when you are deciding who to vote for.

If you want to meet candidates for local elections, the League also hosts a number of events where they ask candidates to come and speak with them. See their local website above for details.

Quality National News Sources

· Politifact (Fact Checking Candidate Statements) https://www.politifact.com/

· FactCheck.org (Fact Checking Candidate Statements) https://www.factcheck.org/

· PBS News (Independent, Non-Profit, Non-Partisan News) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/

· NPR News (Independent, Non-Profit, Non-Partisan News) https://www.npr.org/sections/news/

· Christian Science Monitor (Independent, Non-Partisan News) https://www.csmonitor.com/

· ProPublica (Independent, Non-Profit Investigative Journalism) https://www.propublica.org/

· Center for Public Integrity (Independent, Non-Profit Investigative Journalism) https://www.publicintegrity.org/

Quality Local News Sources

· The quality of local news is often pretty poor. However, the local TV stations and the Corpus Christi Caller times do make what seems like an earnest effort to relay info about the candidates. They are an imperfect but not horrible place to look for info.

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Extra Credit Assignment – Due Monday November 5th by 11:59pm

The following extra credit assignment is worth up to two points on your final grade for the course.

For the credit you’ll need to answer the following questions.

I. List at least two of the people running for the United States House of Representatives from Texas District 27 as well as the political party each belongs to. [Hint: There are four total.]

II. In 200-400 words (no more and no less), explain in your own words the stances that at least two of these candidates have taken on two issues that you feel are important to the nation. [Note that I didn’t ask what you think about the issue or which candidate you prefer. Your goal here is to explain each candidate’s stance on the two issues.]

III. List the five people running for Mayor of Corpus Christi.

IV. In 200-400 words (no more and no less), explain in your own words the stances that at least two of the candidates for mayor have taken on two issues that you feel are important to the city of Corpus. [The same note about your opinions listed in item II applies here as well.]

V. Finally, I’d like to you compare the positions that Senator Ted Cruz and his opponent Beto O’Rourke have taken on college affordability and debt. This item should also be 200-400 words (no more no less). [Note that Cruz’s campaign website doesn’t really say anything about this topic and O’Rourke’s only talks about it a bit, so you’ll need to explore news articles that discuss the various things they’ve said about it or that talk about their voting records in Congress on these issues.]

It will likely be necessary for you to explore the webpages of these candidates as well as news articles about them and the topics you have interest in. This will likely involve websites beyond those that I listed above. For each of your longer answers be sure to provide citation (MLA, APA, or Chicago Style) including specific URLs whenever possible so that I am able to see where you got the info.

Grading Rubric

Submissions that are completely accurate about the candidates and their stances; offer accurate and properly formatted citations; and use clear and grammatically correct prose will received the full two points. Increments of 0.5 points will be deducted for poor performance in any of those categories.

All parts of the assignment are required for credit. Students who fail to complete any one of the items will earn zero credit.

Finally, while you’ll see a grade in Blackboard, I won’t be manually adding this credit to your final course grade until the final scores are totaled after finals week. Emailing me to ask if the points have been added yet will result in the loss of all extra credit for the assignment.

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