JumboVote shuttles Tufts students to polling sites on Election Day

The Jonathan M. Tisch College for Civic Life's JumboVote initiative transported 68 students to and from polling sites in the Medford/Somerville area yesterday from 9 a.m. until polls closed at 8 p.m.

According to Alison Aimers, a volunteer for the shuttle program, the shuttles primarily bused students to polling sites at Visiting Nurse Association, Somerville's Holy Bible Baptist Church, Gantcher Center and Tufts Administration Building. However Aimers, a senior, said that they also provided transportation to other sites in the area by the request of students such as Columbus Elementary School in Medford.

Fifteen student volunteers bused Tufts students to polling sites and four vans were specially arranged for the day, according to shuttle volunteer Ben Kaplan, a senior.

According to Aimers, the shuttles were available all day and ran “as needed.” Wait time throughout the day was not longer than five minutes, she said.

“We are providing the means for people to actually go out and vote. Sometimes people can say that they support a candidate or say that are going to vote, but on election day, people drop out because it is hard to get to their polling places," Aimers said. "By sitting here and driving people to the polls, we are making sure that all the Tufts students that want to vote today are able to vote.”

Diane Alexander (LA '16), JumboVote 2016 coordinator, said that part of the necessity for the shuttle program stems from confusion about polling locations among students who live in dorms.

"Students who live in dorms vote in four different places and a couple of those places are pretty far or students just don't know where they are, so essentially that's part of the necessity," she said. "It's more logistical things that we help take care of, and that's really a necessity for Tufts students."

Alexander also said that the shuttle program ran more smoothly during this election than it had in past years.

"In the past, we've had some minor issues with students going to the wrong place or not knowing their address but I think we've managed to smooth over a lot of that so today went very well," she said.

Ella Brady, a first-year who used the shuttle program to get to her polling site, said that it made the process easier and helped saved her a significant amount of time.

“There was no long line [at the shuttle stop] and there [were] a lot of people helping … to let [students] know where to vote and what to do,” she said.