By
The Wildcat Opinions Board
ASUA, in conjunction with ASA, has done something that is selfless and thankless, but necessary and commendable all the same. In spite of the best efforts of the League of Non-Voters and the worst efforts of the presidential candidates, ASUA has registered to vote about 2,400 students. In the entire university system, around 6,000 students have been registered to vote. This feat becomes more impressive upon realization that this drive ran apart from the usual Democratic and Republican get-out-the-vote drives.
Maybe, it seems, that "feat" is too great a word here. The accolades are too much. Au contraire. Local elections can turn on 2,000 votes, and in the hurly-burly of the national quadrennial spectacle, we forget that there will also be local candidates and issues on the Nov. 7 ballot. Hey, college-aged voters: Proposition 203 would levy a half cent sales tax to give money to all levels education - that means us.
If ASUA's and ASA's accomplishment can be undermined, it is in these local details - the devil is always in the details. This triumph over apathy, then, is not quite ready for celebration. The collegiate voter registration drive will not have succeeded unless these 6,000 students actually vote. All the time, money, effort and words spent in this registration campaign will have been wasted if we cannot put people in the polling booth.
And so, how do we meet the challenge put forth by the drive of student governments? The approach is two-pronged. We must get students interested in going to the polls, and then we must actually get them to the polls. This first task lies right at the feet of the Arizona Daily Wildcat. The second falls again to ASUA, and we hope that they will put forth the effort again.
As detailed in this section of the Oct. 10 Wildcat, the media has done an abysmal job reporting on the elections - local and national. Horserace coverage, which is almost exclusively what the media runs, does nothing but engender voter cynicism and apathy. The conclusion reached in the Oct.10 piece and by numerous political scholars and by this newspaper is that the media ought to focus on issues - mundane as they may be. When voters are informed about and feel they have a steak in political issues, then they will vote. A newspaper does nothing if not inform. The Wildcat will not fail to inform, will not fail to bring interest to the elections and, hopefully, will report increased student turnout at the polls on Nov. 8.
As for the second prong of this voter-turnout campaign, the UA community needs to physically get voters to the polls. ASUA, with its Escort Service vans, seems a likely choice to transport students to the polls. However, student government should not bear the burden alone. Surely, the political clubs on campus will be able to provide transportation to the polling places, but could not other networks join in the effort?
ASUA and ASA have done us a favor with their voter registration drives. Let us return it by actually voting.
