MANY OF us might remember those bumper stickers that bitter Republicans slapped on their cars following the 1992 election. "Don't blame me, I voted for Bush," the message read. Okay, we won't blame you for what has happened since then -- just don't try to take credit for it.
While the message on those bumper stickers was certainly resentful and perhaps a tad immature, the owners of those cars had every justification in the world for making such a statement. After all, they voted. While their candidate did not win that election, they certainly have a right to complain about the result. This stands in stark contrast to those of us who choose not to vote. If you have a problem with the policies of a particular elected official, complaining alone will not change anything. Voting is one of the few forms of communication that politicians respect. By not voting, we introduce a host of threats into American society, and contribute to our democracy's decay. The only solution is for people of our age to get up and head to the polls.
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Even though we Americans like to think that everything is fine and dandy now that the Soviet Union no longer exists, unfortunately that is not the case. From China to Cuba to huge swaths of Africa and Asia, citizens of far too many countries have no role in the selection of their leaders. If you look at the types of governments ruling over the majority of the world's population, democracy is by no means the predominant form.
This fact appears lost on too many Americans, and our own age group is the worst offender. Since the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971, the turnout among voters in the 18-24 year-old demographic has gone from bad to worse. In the first presidential election following this change, roughly half (49.6 percent) of all eligible voters in this age group participated (http://www.census.gov/ population/socdemo/voting/history). In the most recent presidential election, that number had fallen to less than one-third. The lone exception in this parade of ignorance was in 1992, when the turnout spiked back up to nearly 43
percent. That year, if you remember, college graduates from sea to shining sea had to settle for underpaying jobs because the economy could not offer them anything better.
What did they do? They took their complaints to the voting booth.
What does this mean for us? Put simply, it means that politicians will not give a damn about the concerns of college students and other young adults. Why should they? We don't hold them accountable. To see the other side of the equation, why do politicians spend a disproportionate amount of time dealing with Social Security and Medicare?
Because the largest recipients of those programs -- the elderly -- vote in huge numbers.
There's nothing inherently wrong with this fact. But is it really healthy for society when our political process spends so much time and energy devoted to one demographic in particular? Right or wrong, that is the current state of things because we don't tell our elected officials that we are watching what they do.
Take a look at the reasoning behind the decision not to vote. In essence, by not voting, one hands over control of this aspect of one's life to everyone else. That is backward thinking. Would you allow other people to tell you what to eat or what to wear? Of course not. Why do you let other people decide who is going to govern you?
Maybe college students do not vote because they are away from home. If that's the case, then an absentee ballot is the solution. You can get them online now (http://www.sbe. state.va.us/Election/absenteeballotapp.PDF). Perhaps it is a generational phenomenon. Our generation has grown up amid unprecedented prosperity. We have never had to go to war, and odds are that we never will. At this moment, job prospects for college graduates are at a peak. Life is good. But the charmed life we live in our country did not happen by accident. One day it might not be there if we are not vigilant enough to simply get out and vote.
It is impossible to overstate how blessed we are to have this kind of power over our nation's leaders. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have literally given their lives so that we can participate in this one simple act. There are untold millions of people the world over for whom democracy is a foreign concept. Given that we live in the most prosperous, powerful nation on earth, it is that much more important for every citizen here to partake in the democratic process. We have the most to lose as well as the most to gain. One could fill page after page with reasons why this election is of exceptional importance. That task is best left for another time. As for right now, there is no better reason to vote other than the fact that it is the right thing to do.
(Timothy DuBoff's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily.)
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