Voter's remorse

Princeton’s 44 percent turnout is better than average. We beat the rate for young voters (18–29-year-olds), which was a pathetic 20 percent, and practically tied the rate for all voters, which was 41 percent (I figure a margin of error of at least 3 percent is in order since my data comes from PrincetonFML.) However, our turnout should not make us proud. It means that the majority of us sat this Election Day out.

I asked a few classmates why they did not vote. The funniest answer came from a freshman who replied that the government had never sent him an absentee ballot.

“Did you order one?” I asked.

“Oh! I was supposed to do that?” he exclaimed.

My freshman friend, fortunately, is an anomaly. Most students know that they can register to vote and request an absentee ballot. We all have e-mails about elections from Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Tom Dunne in our inboxes. My guess is that the majority of us did not participate because we just did not feel like it.

Some may argue that the roster of positions up for grabs was a logical disincentive. Most voters stay home when there is no presidential race. This year’s national turnout of 41 percent was actually a 28-year high for midterm elections.

But I think voters are making a big mistake by only going to the ballot box when the White House is in play. President Barack Obama is the figurehead of our government, but he does not make all of the important decisions that impact our lives. Municipal and state governments set tax rates and allocate funding to education.

Another deterrent was the selection of candidates. When I logged on to Facebook on Election Day, one friend had the status update, “I’m about to vote — but the candidates are BORING.” Another lamented, “I wish we had better choices.” He went ahead and cast a ballot anyway.

I share my friends’ frustration. Figuring out who to support this year was hard. There was not enough coverage of non-fringe candidates. Pundits got carried away talking about Christine O’Donnell’s foray into witchcraft and sexless one-night stand and that picture in which Krystal Ball pretended to fellate her ex-husband’s nose. In case the last sentence caught you by surprise, O’Donnell was a Tea Party member and the Republic senatorial candidate in Delaware, and Ball was a Democratic candidate in Virginia’s 1st Congressional District. Both lost.

It would be unfair for me to blame all my frustration on the media or the political powers that be. My electoral malaise is also my own fault, and I think most other Princeton students can say the same about themselves. We could have gotten involved in the political process earlier and influenced who appeared on the ballot and how they were covered, but we did not. In general, we are far less politically active than college students of generations past. In the 1960s, the University president, Robert Goheen ’40 GS ’48, moved out of Prospect House because he was tired of walking outside to find students protesting on his doorstep, and colleges across the country put awkward, winding, bisected hallways in new dorms so that they would be riot-proof. A quick stroll over to Butler or Whitman colleges shows how little University administrators worry about student activism today. Both facilities have long stretches of hallway that could easily be taken over by angry protesters.

I do not mean to suggest that all contemporary Princeton students should adopt the tactics of a 1960s mob in order to express their opinions. There are many ways that we can make our voices heard, such as blogging or volunteering for political campaigns (the original purpose of fall break). I just would like to see a spirit of civic duty return to our campus. We are some of the most educated people in the United States, and we have access to some of the best political resources in the world. If we are not even willing to vote to decide who runs our government, our country is in serious trouble.

Haley White is a Wilson School major from Chatham, N.J. She can be reached at hewhite@princeton.edu.