Sam Wang tried to silence us. We’re not going anywhere.

The following is a guest contribution and reflects the authors’ views alone. For information on how to submit a piece to the Opinion section, click here.

On March 31, Princeton professor Sam Wang’s campaign for Congress messaged one of us asking for a donation. We might have considered it if he wasn’t actively trying to limit students’ participation in the very election he was asking us to donate to. 

Last week, staffers from both Sam Wang’s and Plainsfield Mayor Adrian Mapp’s N.J.-12 Democratic primary campaigns attempted to disqualify 83 petition signatures for Sue Altman gathered by us and two other Princeton students not registered to vote in New Jersey. But the statute that the challengers alleged we violated has been ruled an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment. In 1988, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that petition gathering is “core political speech” in which “the importance of First Amendment protections is ‘at its zenith,’” and in 2020, a federal court determined that New Jersey’s ban on out-of-state circulators infringes upon their First Amendment rights. Before student volunteers circulated petitions, Altman’s campaign confirmed this unambiguous precedent with the New Jersey Department of Elections and later appealed the initial ruling disqualifying the petitions to New Jersey Secretary of State Dale Caldwell ’82, who reversed the decision Thursday. 

This attempt to bar students from gathering petitions is an attack on our fundamental right to participate in democracy. In a statement to The Daily Princetonian, Wang accused the Altman campaign of “sloppily using petition gatherers from outside the district.” First, there’s nothing sloppy about empowering students who are eager to get involved. Whether registered to vote in Princeton or elsewhere, Princeton students spend the vast majority of their four years in this congressional district and feel the effects of its representation in Congress.

For Princeton, that representation matters even more now. Recent cuts to federal research funding, broader assaults on academic freedom, and ICE activity in Princeton’s neighborhood have shown how vital it is that Princeton has a voice in choosing its representative in Congress. In his campaign platform, Wang emphasizes college affordability and restoring funding to the Department of Education, issues that affect students more than anyone else. Wang wishes to be seen as the premier candidate fighting for higher education, yet he seems to be perfectly comfortable sidelining student voices when convenient. His actions either demonstrate that he’s willing to curtail students’ right to petition so he can further his own campaign or that he finds no issue with adhering to a legally unsound and unjust interpretation of the rights of his potential constituents. Given that his campaign had no qualms about targeting students to further his political goals, one might question if Wang would adequately represent Princeton students’ interests if elected. 

Without the Altman campaign’s appeal to the Secretary of State, this attempt to prevent anyone registered to vote outside the state of New Jersey from collecting petitions would have succeeded, jeopardizing student involvement in all campaigns this cycle and in the future. Compared to older demographics, college-age voters are already more reluctant to engage with politics, especially at the local level. We turn out to vote at the lowest rates, particularly in primaries. Attacking a primary avenue for students to engage with the political process is far from helpful in addressing this problem. Every student should be able to participate meaningfully, regardless of which candidate they support. We firmly believe that any student who supports Sam Wang — or another candidate — should have been able to speak to voters and collect petitions, just as we did for Sue Altman. 

Moreover, we were not “sloppily” enlisted by the Altman campaign as arbitrary out-of-state volunteers with no interest in the district. Over the past three years, we have canvassed for candidates up and down the ballot, from U.S. senators to state legislators to county commissioners. Last cycle, we organized 48 student volunteers to knock on over 7,000 doors for now-Governor Mikie Sherrill (search “Mikie Sherrill” in your emails — you probably got at least a few emails from us about canvassing!). 

Our experience with the best and worst of New Jersey politics is what drew us to volunteer for Altman’s campaign. A key reason we support Sue Altman is her commitment to bringing people into the political process, not pushing them out. We’re grateful that Altman’s campaign fought to protect our rights and challenged a blatant attempt to sideline volunteers just because we don’t support a certain candidate. Altman has built a campaign that values all voices, which is why we chose to spend over 10 hours knocking on doors and having personal conversations with voters, whether they agreed with us or not. Just like Altman, we believe this political process should uplift every voter’s perspective. We view our participation in this process as exercising our right to participate in democracy within our community. Wang’s attempt to invalidate our participation reveals his willingness to sacrifice democratic principles for political gain. 

We hope Princeton students will not be deterred from participating in this likely once-in-a-decade opportunity to elect a new representative for our congressional district. We chose to get involved with Altman’s campaign because we believe she will be an effective progressive legislator in Congress. However, we urge you to get involved with supporting any of the many candidates running that speaks to you rather than let yourself be sidelined and told that you don’t have a stake in the outcome of the race.

Wang has said that he wants to “build a better democracy for all.” We do, too. That’s why it was so disappointing to see him at the forefront of an attack on the exercise of our democratic rights, when what we really need is a movement representing all of the diversity in our district — including students.

Michelle Miao is a senior in the Politics department from Oxford, Ohio. She is president emerita of Princeton College Democrats and a former contributing news writer for The Daily Princetonian. She can be reached at mm3530[at]princeton.edu.

Paul Wang is a junior in the Chemistry department from Queens, N.Y. He is the former outreach chair of Princeton College Democrats and can be reached at pw8622[at]princeton.edu.

Please send any corrections to corrections[at]dailyprincetonian.com.