Doubtless, by now, you have all heard about the upcoming national elections. Maybe you are on fire to go out and cast your ballot. Maybe you are entirely disillusioned with the whole process. Maybe you are one of the thousands of international students on this campus who would fall into one of the previous categories, but simply can not vote. Let us not forget them when having our “discussions” on this topic. And maybe you are one of those rare finds—the undecided voter.
Whatever your political leanings with the process, I urge you to go out and vote in the coming election. Voting, of course, requires being registered, so if you haven’t done that, well, it may be too late depending on where you are from. But if you have registered I also urge you to get a hold of your local board of elections and determine whether or not you are in fact registered.
Why the concern? Because voter abuses aren’t just for the third world anymore. This is a recent quote from an American journalist being interviewed on “Democracy Now,” (which can be heard weekdays on WRPI 9 to 10 am) who was in Afghanistan during its elections, “The ink [supposedly indelible to keep track of who voted] was running off peoples’ hands…many polling places had no pens, they ran out of ballots, some polls closed and reopened, lots and lots of people had multiple voting cards, including myself. One of the parties gave me two valid voting cards that I could add my photograph to and I could have voted if I wanted to.”
If you think those kinds of abuses can only occur outside the “Land of the Free” – think again. The Ohio state attorney general is disallowing any voter registration card that isn’t printed on 80 pound card stock paper. There has been a private consulting company, funded directly by the Republican Party, whose job it was to register voters. It has come to light, in multiple states, that this company has been throwing away any registration form for people attempting to register as Democrats. In Colorado, low-income citizens have been fraudulently registered, as in the voters in question did not register themselves, but some one else registered them. This is reported as presumably a Democratic tactic.
If that wasn’t enough to make you want to check to see if you are registered, consider this piece from Arizona: A local news affiliate, yes Fox, aired a story telling University of Arizona students that it would be illegal for them to attempt to vote on election day unless they were already local residents. Read this next part very carefully: it is not illegal! And neither is it for you (presuming you are a citizen of the U.S.).
So, again, I urge all of you who are able to vote if you are eligible This coming election day is November 2 if that has somehow slipped by you. Send a clear message that college-age voters do matter and that they do vote.
