
Alachua County Supervisor of Elections Kim A. Barton, through the Florida Supervisors of Elections (FSE), will be offering Florida college and university students the opportunity to apply for one of three $1,200 scholarships.
Applications are due March 8 and must be submitted to the Supervisor of Elections of the county in which the student is registered to vote.
The scholarships are awarded as part of the association’s ongoing commitment to education in Florida.
“Going into a Presidential Election year, we are thrilled to work with Supervisors of Elections across the state to provide students with this scholarship opportunity,” Barton said in a press release. “I am hoping we can help another University of Florida or Santa Fe College student on their road to success”.
To be eligible, students must be enrolled as a full-time junior or senior studying political science, public or business administration, or journalism/mass communications. Students also must be registered to vote in Florida.
Each county will review the applications it receives and conduct interviews. The county will choose one student from its applicants to be considered by the FSE scholarship committee.
The application, additional guidelines and more information can be found at https://www.votealachua.gov/Outreach-Media/Scholarship
I’ll admit up front that I know little about the subject, but it seems odd to me that governmental agencies are awarding scholarships. After looking a little further into it, I also found that the Supervisors of Elections in Florida appear to be privately organized. This makes me very uncomfortable when I think of how an organization of government employees could have an extreme influence over our public elections.
Sounds like vote buying. Can we have access to how much the total administration cost is to give away $1200.00?