By
Dan Cassino
Students don't vote. Americans between the ages of 18 and 22 have chronically low voter turnout. Voters between 22 and 29 don't do much better.
Thus, it should come as a surprise that an hour and a half after the polls closed last night, there were still people waiting in line at polling places near the University. Turning out even in the unseasonable, bone-chilling cold, many waited as much as two and a half hours for their chance to vote. Last night, at least, we managed to prove them wrong.
It's impossible to blame the pollsters for not predicting the massive increase in turnout that accompanied the excitement of last night. Many things in this election were unprecedented. There was no reason to suppose that Al Gore, as an incumbent vice-president in a good economy, attached to a popular president, should not have had the lead all the way through. There was no reason to suppose that Democratic strongholds in California and Minnesota should have been even remotely in play. There was no reason to suppose that all over the country, people would be waiting for hours in lines. But even if the experts can't give an explanation for why people turned out in such numbers, the people can.
Greg Terranova, a business management sophomore, was one of the students waiting in line at the First Christian Church, on the corner of Speedway and Euclid, last night. Like the others there, he waited for over two hours for his chance to cast a ballot.
"I don't really think that my one vote matters," he explained, "but if everyone took that attitude..."
And he's right. He came out to vote for the right reasons. Because even if we live in a state in which the presidential race is predetermined, even if one vote doesn't matter, we still have a responsibility to vote. This isn't a popular attitude in our nation: we like to hear about our rights and our privileges; no one wants to hear about the duties and obligations they hold to our nation. Voting is one of them, and it is heartening to see that people under the age of 30 are realizing this.
Before the polls actually opened last night, it was assumed that if the campuses turned out, they would do so in favor of Green party candidate Ralph Nader. He campaigned as an anti-establishment alternative to the major parties, but his support evaporated at the polls. His dream of achieving a 5 percent margin in order to receive federal funds in the next election collapsed. Instead, all of the people we talked to in the cold outside of the First Christian Church supported one of the establishment candidates, for one reason or another. In doing so, they showed that they should be respected as any other voter should be. Certainly, they didn't seem to be more naive or more idealistic than the average voter.
"There's two stupid people running," said education freshman Alex Thompson, "people just want the lesser of the evils. Most people, I think, are trying to keep the other guy out."
No one will ever be able to say exactly what happened last night. Nothing in politics is ever really fully explained in retrospect, but we can hope that it was our better demons that showed themselves last night. We can hope that Americans under the age of thirty have finally accepted the mantle of responsibility that has come down to them with the vote. Finally, we can hope that this will continue, not just in presidential elections, but in local races and school board elections, in mid-term house races and fire district runoffs. There are many reasons to vote, but it doesn't matter which one you choose, so long as you carry it in your convictions. Last night, perhaps for the first time, we showed that our convictions matter.
Above all else, there is one good reason for students to vote, and one that we would all hope is foremost in the minds of students going to the polls. No one stated it more succinctly than pre-business freshman Kristen Alber. As she said, "We're die-hard Americans."
