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Voting: Does it matter?
OUR VOICE: EDITORIAL
With elections taking place this Tuesday, Nov. 6 and the 2008 presidential election approaching, what better time than now to talk about why college students shouldn't vote.
The U.S. Census Bureau has found that college students and young adults aging from 18-24 have the lowest level of voter turnout. According to YahooAnswers.com, some of the main reasons that young people don't vote are cynicism, apathy and ignorance.
With this in mind, we can conclude that, for students, it's much more important to be concerned with the current fashion trends and what Britney Spears is up to, rather than concerning ourselves with who our elected leaders, such as the president or mayor, are going to be. After all, they don't do a whole lot for us anyway: Anyone can raise and lower taxes, send troops to war, decide how much student aid is available, determine interest rates on loan payments and create or eliminate availability of local rental houses.
Also, as the 2000 presidential election showed, your vote doesn't matter. Al Gore received a half million more votes than George W. Bush, yet Bush won due to electoral college default, according to CNN.
We have way too much homework and partying to do to even consider wasting our time on a vote that doesn't matter. Then there is the task of becoming well-informed. It's much easier to listen to what your parents tell you, for once, than to take 30 minutes of your time and actually research the candidates' opinions on issues that are important to you. We have already established that it doesn't affect us anyway.
Finally, since many feel that there is so much wrong with our government today, why should we do anything to fix it? If something is broken, leave it alone. It will fix itself, or people who are more knowledgeable and active than us will take care of it. They are doing such a great job already.
Let our parents and other older, more informed voters decide the future of our country; they know what's best for us. Who cares if politicians only pay attention to the issues that relate directly to middle-aged and retired voters? There are no important issues that we as young people care about. Things like the environment, health care and the economy are not relevant to us. Our time is better spent figuring out what concerts we can go to and whether or not our Myspace page is up to date, rather than taking five minutes on Nov. 6, in an antiquated booth voting for someone we don't know or care about.
