By RORY MOORE
Tiger Media Network
As part of the Civic Engagement Speaker Series, the Kansas Coalition for Common Sense gave a lecture at Cody Commons on Tuesday led by Loud Life intern Sarah Braun and coalition president Ashley All. The lecture had both speakers present statistical data on voter turnout among college students across Kansas, the results of referendums on abortion and how students can make their voices heard through voting.
Braun spoke about how Loud Light has encouraged more students to participate in elections.
“What Loud Light is trying to do is to engage voters that are youth voters,” she said. “We’re looking at people from age 18 to around 30 years old, and we’re trying to make sure that they recognize how much of an impact they can have on elections, not just on the federal level, but also state and local.”
Sarah Braun presents data about voter turnout and registration among Fort Hays students. 
Ashley All is the president and founder of the Kansas Coalition for Commons Sense and was a spokesperson for Kansans for Constitutional Freedom during the 2022 elections. 
All spoke about the odds she faced when working towards a liberal result of the state’s abortion referendum in a deep red environment. 
All shares her experience in politics and they work she has done over the years. 
The overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 was a key factor in All’s work to keep abortion rights in Kansas. 
All takes questions after her lecture.
She mentioned the upcoming elections next month and pointed out what is on the ballot for voters to decide.
“Obviously, there are big things on the ballot this year,” Braun said. “We’re going to have the Presidential Election, the House of Representative seats, state legislators and the Board of Education. In Ellis County, we have the county clerk.”
While she stressed the importance of these elections, Braun included the fact that voting statistics from college campuses, including FHSU, have lagged.
“The average for college campuses in Kansas is 66% voter turnout rate,” she said. “Fort Hays is only 62.4%. So, we’re actually one of the lowest voter turnouts among all the students.”
She attributed this statistic to students’ apathy towards politics.
“Politics can really be a lot for students nowadays,” Braun said. “They know what’s going on, but there is an active choice to not participate. A lot of people I’ve talked to say they’re not registered to vote will immediately respond with, ‘I’m not interested.’ So, we’re trying to make sure that people realize that they have a voice because the second you have [a] majority of people, especially young voters, turned away from politics because of [how] malicious it can be, you’re losing so much voice in this generation.”
All spoke about the work she has done with the Coalition, her involvement with politics and how recent Supreme Court decisions influenced her initiatives.
“In 2022, I had the honor of being the spokesperson for Kansas for Constitutional Freedom which was the pro-choice side against the campaign for the amendment to ban abortions,” she said. “Roe versus Wade was overturned, and as a result, it was chaos, and the stakes of our ballot campaign got much higher. The decision sent shockwaves around the country, and it really was a wakeup call for a lot of us.”
The court’s decision to return the authority of the issue to the states motivated All to prove the challenges that came from the ruling.
“Not only were we fighting for the freedom and reproductive rights of all Kansans, but we also had to demonstrate to the rest of the nation that it could be done,” All said. “We had a big job ahead of us, and a lot of people played an important role in that campaign. It was thanks to an army of volunteers and advocates that that we were able to be successful.”
Ashley All pointed out how the liberal decision on the abortion referendum in a conservative state like Kansas opened the door for others like her to act.
“Everybody thought we were going to lose. We worked very hard in a hot summer, there were 50 different groups talking to voters loudly, I did 130 interviews, and we were successful and other states have been successful,” Ashley All said. “We won 59% of the vote and we protected constitutional rights. Kansas was the first state in the nation 40 days after Roe fell to vote on abortion rights, and we were the first victory for reproductive rights. It changed the way the entire country was talking about abortion rights.”