Self-sabotaging Democrats snubbing OU students, secretly boosting Republican| Candidate
Self-Sabotaging Democrats Suppress Student Voting in Southeast Ohio
![Sharon Colvin, of Athens, looks inside the empty building that once housed the Little Professor Book Center on Ohio University's main campus in Athens on Wednesday. "I wasn't aware that students were counted here. If they are, that's going to cause problems," Colvin said of the 2020 Census. Ohio University students make up about 75% of the population in Athens during the school year. After students left early in the spring and questions surround in-person classes for the fall, census data could be drastically lower than actual representation, affecting future federal funding for the town. [Gaelen Morse/Dispatch]](https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/8RfMqVKVq7Ayt13kTv0UHA--/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjt3PTk2MDtoPTY0MA--/https://media.zenfs.com/en/the-columbus-dispatch/318baa4a456ade0600c214b67c84734b)
Damon Krane is a journalist, community organizer, democratic socialist and current candidate for mayor of Athens. His writing and news coverage of his activism can be found at at www.damonkrane.com
Young Americans overwhelmingly prefer reproductive freedom and Democrats. A statewide abortion rights measure will grace Ohio ballots this November.
But in the quintessential college town of Athens –where Ohio University students comprise about 80% of eligible voters at the heart of Southeast Ohio’s only blue county — Democratic leaders are determined to prevent students from voting.
Athens is remarkable for heavy Democratic sentiment and light voter turnout.
Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans six to one, and most unregistered eligible voters are progressive students. But in city elections the most populous voting precincts have single-digit turnout, and alienation bleeds into midterms too.
Athens County had Ohio’s second lowest turnout in 2014, and from 2018 to 2022, while national turnout of eligible voters fell just 3%, the number of Athenians casting ballots plummeted a whopping 35%.
Lack of voter choice is largely to blame.
With about a dozen city offices up for grabs every two years, only two Republicans have run since 2011, and there hasn’t been more than a single contested Democratic primary race in any of the past six city elections.
This year 11 Democrats are running for 11 offices, and Republicans aren’t running for anything.
In 2019, progressive independents –including me– began running for Athens city office against Democrats to boost local turnout.
Since young people overwhelmingly vote for Democrats, our opponents should have simply tried to win more student votes than us. Instead, they laid bare their opposition to student voting.
Running for mayor in 2019, I allied with Ellie Hamrick, an independent running for council.
While registering students at OU dining halls, we never encountered Democrats doing the same. We became the first candidates ever to text bank OU students about a city election. Democrats never followed suit.
I encouraged student groups to hold a campus candidate forum before the voter registration deadline. By the time they wrangled the Dems, the deadline had passed.
Running for council in 2021, I was again the only candidate calling for a campus forum. After meeting with their county party chair, all the Dems announced they would not attend – opting instead for a forum held after the registration deadline, from which their opponents were excluded.
Meanwhile, Democratic Mayor Steve Patterson didn’t just snub students, he tried to secretly boost Republican turnout against progressive independents, despite the harm this also would cause to then-Democratic congressional candidate Allison Russo, D-Upper Arlington, whom Patterson had publicly endorsed in the special election for Ohio’s 15th District that coincided with the 2021 city election.
Patterson’s secret meeting with Republicans didn’t go as planned.
Someone recorded the Democratic mayor as he appealed to Donald Trump supporters with far-right talking points; praised Larry Householder protégé and “heartbeat bill” co-sponsor, state representative Jay Edwards , R-Nelsonville; and joined Republicans in laughing off Iris Virjee (an independent young woman candidate of color) as merely a “girl” and “bartender” whose non-Anglo Saxon name Patterson said he couldn’t even remember.
The recording was front page news the day Patterson hosted Russo’s campaign visit to Athens.
Yet no Democratic leader criticized Patterson, and no Democrat challenged him in the 2023 primary. So I decided to oppose him again and focused on boosting youth turnout for the reproductive freedom amendment.
In my April 20 campaign announcement I challenged Patterson to a student-hosted campus debate before the voter registration deadline.
On July 21 reproductive rights activists joined me on the county courthouse steps to reissue the call.
“Progressives urge Athens County Democrats to engage young voters, support mayoral candidate forum,” a June 23 Athens Messenger headline announced.
Patterson’s response, backed by Democratic County Chair Sean Parsons, came in a June 28 Messenger article headlined, “Patterson says he’s willing to debate Krane, but not on Ohio University’s campus.”
This shameful disregard for young people won’t help pass Ohio’s reproductive freedom amendment or increase Democratic turnout. If any real Democrats exist in state party leadership, they need to stop Athens party leaders from continuing to sabotage the blue county’s potential.
Damon Krane is a journalist, community organizer, democratic socialist and current candidate for mayor of Athens. His writing and news coverage of his activism can be found at www.damonkrane.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Votes of Ohio University students are being suppressed by Democrats| Damon Krane
