KU, KSU hope bet registers at polls

The last thing Jonathan Ng, Kansas University’s student body president, wants to do is wear purple to the KU-Kansas State football game Nov. 2.

That’s why he’s pleading with Jayhawk football fans: Register to vote for the November election at today’s game against Colorado.

Ng and Zac Cook, student body president at KSU, made a wager on who can register the most voters today at their schools’ respective football games. The loser must wear the opposing school’s colors to the Sunflower Showdown in three weeks at KU, and will be introduced on the field.

“I’d be embarrassed,” Ng said. “The governor’s going to be there.”

The bet is part of voter registration drives under way at both campuses. Fueled by concerns about higher-education funding, student leaders at KU and KSU have stepped up efforts to get students and other university supporters to the polls Nov. 5.

KU student leaders want to register 5,000 new voters before the election. KSU leaders want to register about 11,000.

Students at both schools plan to have tables for registration and walk with clipboards among tailgaters today to solicit new voters.

Cook said he initiated the bet two weeks ago with a phone call to Ng.

“We were looking for ways to partner with KU,” he said. “This began as a friendly competition, before KU began so much smack talking.”

Initially, the bet involved the total number of new voters registered today. But then Ng realized there would be more fans at the KSU game and called Cook to amend the wager to the percentage of the announced attendance at each game.

“We realize KU football sucks,” Cook said. “We’re going to give them a handicap.”

Both presidents said they were confident they’d win.

“They say they have a more politically active campus, but we say we have a civically responsible campus,” Cook said. “We feel it’s a duty to vote. We’re not just radical, blue-haired people from KU.”

Ng countered: “I feel confident we can beat K-State and show KU is more civically minded. If we were to somehow lose, I’d go to the (K-State) bookstore, buy a shirt and throw it away afterwards. I don’t own anything purple, or anything remotely purple.”