Last week, we left off our discussion about the democratic failure
that can be seen across campuses nationwide: college student participation
rates have been on a steady decline since the mid-1960s and have, overall, been
much lower than the participation of all other age groups in the general electorate.
Today I will be taking a closer look at two reasons that may bring to light
why students are not voting anymore, starting with the registration process one
must go through to be able to vote.
In order to vote in the state of Michigan, one must be a U.S.
citizen, at least 18 years of age, a resident of Michigan, and a resident of
the city or township of where you are applying to register to vote. For me, all
four of these are easily fulfilled because I have lived in Ann Arbor all my
life and can readily go to my registered home to vote, but this is not the case
for the majority of University of Michigan students.
The largest problem for most out-of-state students is the fact
that Michigan law requires that the “same address must be used for voter
registration and driver’s license purposes,” the law goes on to state that “if the residence address you provide on the
application differs from the address shown on a driver's license or personal
identification card issued by the state of Michigan, the Secretary of State
will automatically change your driver's license or personal ID card address to
match the residence address entered on this form. If a change is made, the
Secretary of State will mail you an address update sticker for your driver's
license or personal ID card.”
Entering my senior year this fall, I will have changed my living
address four times in as many years while attending the University of Michigan,
requiring me, each time I wish to vote, to submit registration with a new place
of living to be in adherence with the law. The life of a college student is
busy enough as it is, and for the average college student who may not know that
addresses on the driver’s license must match their registration information
will be in for a nasty shock come Election Day.
I recently spoke with Ian Hecker, a
representative of the campus organization
Action for America (AFA), which promotes millennial
involvement in politics and often hosts events at school that focus on
millennial issues, about the registration process. He said that “The system is not as efficient as it could be… many
students are not educated about the registration process and miss deadlines.” He
goes on to argue that the university itself is not doing enough to encourage
voting nor is it even attempting to educate students about the registration process. Overall, there are too many hoops required to jump through for the
average college student in order for him or her to register to vote on a
university campus.
The second reason to explain poor campus
voting turnout is the idea of apathy among college students. Restated from my
first entry, one of Adam Przeworski’s four challenges that he believes
confronts democracy is that there is an incapacity to make people feel that
their participation is effective. This is summed up by the director of the
Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, Curtis Gans, who believes
that people have sensed that their specific vote matters less, that people do
not watch the news as much leading to a falling out of touch with politics, and
that there is a sense of politics overall being a dirty business. All of these
can be used to understand why students would specifically choose not to vote,
even if they have accessed the means to already. We no longer feel as though
our vote counts and would rather spend our valuable time doing other things.
Apathy also has larger implications
on student interests. Pzreworski explains that the choices presented by
elections no longer include all of the ideal points that each citizen has in
his or her general interest. Citizens who no longer identify with presidential
and congressional candidates may continue to be driven away from voting booths. Since democracy today uses representatives to best convey the
interests of the people, most of these specific interests of the college age
citizens are being lost when we decide not to vote. Specifically in this year’s
Presidential election where so much media bias has been shed on the candidates
of both political parties, students are left unable to get the facts necessary
to make informed decisions and may chose not to vote at all as a result.
Students as citizens are failing in
their civic duty to participate by not voting in general elections.
That is the democratic failure that we must strive to overcome, as it is in
each person’s own best interest as well as in the best interest for the country as a whole for everyone to cast a ballot. We have become apathetic to
politics in general, and we have been alienated by a registration process which
makes it harder to vote than to learn to code a computer. But all hope is not
lost. Tune in next week to learn about progress that can be made to encourage
the silent generation to rediscover its voice.
“Is the System Broken?” PBS. PBS, n.d. web. Mar 30 2016.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/spc/extra/features/july-dec00/brokensystem.html
Pzreworski, Adam. Self-Government in our Times. Annual
Reviews. 2009.
“Registering to Vote.” Michigan. State of Michigan, 2016. Web.
Mar 30 2016.
https://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,1607,7-127-1633_8716_8726_47669---,00.html
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