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ASU softball junior Olivia Miller is using her platform as an athlete to get the word out to fellow athletes about registering to vote and using their voice.

Arizona Republic

Voting comes naturally for Arizona State softball’s Olivia Miller.

Her grandmother, Kimberly Carr, has been a Maricopa County elections volunteer for years. “The second she could register me to vote, she was at my house with a clipboard, well before I even turned 18,” Miller said.

Growing up, she would tag along while her mother dropped off her ballot on voting day. When she was 16, Miller was envious of classmates two years older at Tempe Corona del Sol High School eligible to vote in the 2016 presidential election.

There was never any doubt that Miller, now 20, not only would be voting this time around but encouraging others her age to do so. The degree of her activism, though, soared when she learned how few of ASU’s 600 athletes were registered to vote, and how vital she deemed their participation in light of a summer of social justice protests.

Miller already had started on an action plan to register ASU athletes before the coronavirus pandemic shut down her season and those of other spring sports in March. Then after the death of George Floyd in May, police brutality and racial injustice issues further sharpened her election participation resolve.

“I had all this guilt that was weighing on me,” she said. “I felt like I wasn’t doing enough. Where can I start? What am I passionate about, what do I know?”

The answers were obvious particularly with the support she already had received from ASU’s athletic administration to increase what in February, before Arizona’s presidential preference election, was roughly five-percent voter registration among ASU athletes.

Deana Garner-Smith, Alonzo Jones, Bill Kennedy and Kim DeSimone were among the administrators who helped Miller enlist coaches for assistance with their teams and use the Student-Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC), of which she is a member, as an asset.

Last week, the NCAA Division I Council approved a proposal from the DI SAAC to not allow practice or competition on the first Tuesday after Nov. 1 every year so athletes would have time to vote, including in the upcoming presidential election Nov. 3. 

Still, convincing Gen Z to vote is not easy, as Miller has discovered even among her own teammates. And there are a myriad of issues because ASU recruits athletes from many states, so there are absentee-ballot requirements to consider. Athletes from Arizona have until Oct. 5 to register to vote in Arizona

“My own teammates, I don’t have as much reach as you would think,” Miller said. “That’s been one of my biggest struggles that I haven’t had the support from them I would want honestly. It offends me a little bit. 

“I don’t want to push people. I do wish them seeing how passionate I am about it, that would be enough to make them care. And we have teammates that are affected from people in office pretty directly.”

Miller, an outfielder/pinch runner for ASU, has discussed the disconnect with softball coach Trisha Ford, who graduated from Saint Mary’s College with a degree in politics and feels a kinship with Miller’s cause. But in more than 20 years of coaching, Ford also understands the single-mindedness of many major college athletes.

“We talked 18-22 (age range) being a very pivotal time,” Ford said. “Our goal is to help them to find their voice. Liv has done a good job rallying the troops, bringing some education and information to a population that doesn’t pay much attention to politics. She’s found her voice, and I’m super proud of her. Sometimes I forget she’s a student and not a full-time worker.”

Miller also has worked as an intern with the Andrew Goodman Foundation, which supports youth leadership development, voting accessibility and social justice initiatives on college campuses. Her career vision is to become a criminal defense attorney.

ASU football coach Herm Edwards, who was in college at California during the Vietnam War protest era, is actively working to register his entire team to vote. On Tuesday, for National Voter Registration Day, Miller is appealing to what comes naturally to athletes, namely competition, to increase what she now estimates to be a 50 percent ASU athlete registration total.

“I’m going to challenge (SAAC) staff representatives from every team to see who can register the most amount of voters” over the final two weeks before the registration deadline, she said. “My motive is clearly this matters. We wouldn’t get this as an off day if it was for nothing. Your vote matters.

“I can’t make people care, but I can certainly try, and I can help them navigate things that aren’t just talking about (Donald) Trump or (Joe) Biden because we all know it’s so much more than that.

“I don’t care who you’re voting for, I want you to vote. I’m not going to judge you. At this point, I would rather them vote for whoever they want” than sit the election out.

More: Pandemic extends Cortney Jones’ time to make impact at Arizona State

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602-444-8053. Follow him on Twitter @jeffmetcalfe.

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