As voters in 22 states head to polling places Feb. 5 — known as Super Tuesday for the number of primaries scheduled — some students in Boston will rush to their mailboxes.
Boston University students who are from outside Massachusetts must mail in absentee ballots or re-register to vote in the commonwealth.
However, despite the image of Boston as the Athens of America, the commonwealth does not have an unusually high student population.
“It’s a myth that Massachusetts has so many college students,” said Avi Green, executive director of MassVOTE, a voting rights organization that works to increase voter education and turnout across the state.
He said Massachusetts stands at 20th in the nation for college students per capita, and has proportionally has fewer students than Rhode Island, Wyoming or Washington, D.C.
CIRCLE, a nonpartisan research center studying youth voting patterns, reported 16 percent of voters in the New Hampshire primary were under age 30 and 43 percent of registered voters under 30, voted in the primary, a huge jump fºrom 18 percent in 2004.
Green said it is important to encourage young people to vote so they become familiar and comfortable with the process and get in a regular habit of voting. He said most people have made a habit of voting or have chosen not to vote by the age of 30, but young people are often undecided.
“It’s your duty to vote,” he said. “The government functions better when more people hold elected officials accountable.”
Green said a young voter’s parents also affect his or her attitude and behavior toward voting.
Boston University Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences freshman Laura Ankers said because her parents are not U.S. citizens and cannot vote, she has never been to a polling station.
“I filled out the card to register to vote, but I never mailed it in, and I don’t know where it is now,” she said. “I’m probably not going to get it done in time before the election.”
Though Massachusetts voters wishing to register or change their party affiliations have missed the deadline, most voters registered in other states are still eligible to apply for an absentee ballot from their home state.
However, unaffiliated voters — called un-enrolled voters in Massachusetts — may face some restrictions when voting in primaries.
Massachusetts allows un-enrolled voters to vote in either the Democratic or the Republican primary and remain un-enrolled after the vote. New York has one of the country’s toughest policies, asking residents to change their unaffiliated status at least one year before the primary in which they want to vote.
BU College of Arts and Sciences sophomore Katie Persons said she applied for an absentee ballot from Maryland because she believes primaries are more important than the general election.
“You get the chance to pick the candidate as opposed to being given a selection between two since we are a two-party state,” she said.
Ann Chernicoff, a BU School of Law student, said she changed her registration to vote in Massachusetts because she was less familiar with recent voting initiatives in her home state of California.
“I’m more excited about learning and voting on the politics in Massachusetts, the state where I live,” she said.