LA JOLLA, Calif. – With two months remaining until Election Day, UC San Diego's Triton Athletes' Council (TAC) has announced its Triton Voting Initiative program. TAC's stated goal is to have all UC San Diego scholar-athletes registered to vote beginning with this year's federal, state, and local elections.
 
"I am thrilled about the launch of the Triton Voting Initiative and hope that this campaign will help empower scholar-athletes to become more engaged in the democratic process," said Gabe Avillion, President of Triton Athletes' Council and a redshirt junior on the men's volleyball team. "Voting is one of the most influential tools we have to effect change on the issues that are important to us, and it provides an opportunity to have a say in the decision-making that impacts nearly every aspect of our lives. It is about more than any single candidate or election; it is about participating in the patriotic act of getting informed and casting a ballot that represents your beliefs on how best to improve our country. Abstaining from this process is surrendering your voice, and a democracy cannot be successful without the voices of every citizen."
 
"It's important for scholar-athletes to participate in elections because students make up such a large proportion of young voters, and voting is how we can use our collective voice to make a difference," added Madison Baxter, who is TAC's Scholar-Athlete Development Chair and a junior on the women's basketball team. "It's important as young adults to actively have a say in who we choose to represent us and what policies are in place in our local and state governments."
 
While driven primarily by TAC, the Triton Voting Initiative is part of UC San Diego Athletics' mission to develop inclusive leaders for life. The goal of the campaign is to educate and engage coaches, scholar-athletes, and Athletics staff on the importance of civic engagement.

"I'm proud of our scholar-athletes for their work in developing the Triton Voting Initiative," said Earl W. Edwards, Director of Athletics at UC San Diego. "Exercising one's right to vote is a critical part of American democracy in action, and we look forward to supporting TAC's efforts via our Tritons Rise Up group to ensure all of our scholar-athletes understand the importance of voting and doing what we can to enable each and every one of them to exercise that right."

In addition to voter registration, TAC has worked with the Athletics Department to ensure Election Day is a quiet day with no competitions or team practices scheduled to help facilitate scholar-athletes' ability to vote. An on-line resource guide is being created on UCSDTritons.com for scholar-athletes to ensure they are registered to take part in all future elections.
 
"TAC has decided to take on this voting initiative because we believe it's important to encourage as many scholar athletes as possible to vote, and this initiative will not only encourage students to vote but will also provide them with the resources and opportunities to do so," Baxter explained. "We hope this initiative will emphasize the importance of voting among our athletes and create a long-lasting culture of civic engagement within our athletics community."
 
TAC has also coordinated with UC San Diego's Associated Students Civic Engagement Office and Tritons Vote on spreading voter awareness across campus.
 
About UC San Diego Athletics
After two decades as one of the most successful programs in NCAA Division II, the UC San Diego intercollegiate athletics program begins a new era in 2020 as a member of the Big West Conference in NCAA Division I.  The 23-sport Tritons earned 30 team and nearly 150 individual national championships during its time in Divisions III and II and helped guide more than 1,300 scholar-athletes to All-America honors.  A total of 83 Tritons have earned Academic All-America honors, while 37 have earned prestigious NCAA Post Graduate Scholarships.  UC San Diego scholar-athletes exemplify the academic ideals of one of the world's preeminent institutions, graduating at an average rate of 91 percent, one of the highest rates among institutions at all divisions.