BU students cast votes for O’Brien

With the elections of 2002 over, members of EnviroCitizen have turned to the numbers to reflect on Boston University’s voter turnout and their candidate of choice.

Claire Enterline, a College of Arts and Sciences freshman and member of EnviroCitizen, explained that the organization contacted groups within BU and the area schools in an attempt to bring awareness to the election. Enterline was EnviroCitizen’s lead election analyst at BU.

‘EnviroCitizen decided to come to schools like BU and Northeastern in the hopes that increased publicity and campus interaction would increase the amount of students who voted in the election and their understanding of the issues being debated within the election,’ Enterline said.

‘Through our efforts with EnviroCitizen, we united Boston University’s College Republicans, College Greens, College Democrats, Democracy Matters, Environmental Student Organization, Students for United Peace and VOX, and began a campus-wide campaign for the election.’

EnviroCitizen is a national non-profit organization that tries to boost voter awareness on college campuses across the country.

Enterline explained that overall the voter turnout for this midterm election saw a major increase from past years.

‘In precinct 10, which is 99 percent students, there was a 65 percent increase in voters from the past elections,’ Enterline said. There was also a huge increase in voters for the Myles Standish voting district, which is up from 24 to 254.

‘With only 254 voters in that area, precinct 21 has the lowest percentage turnout in Boston, but the increase in voters shows that students are showing more interest in politics and decisions that could affect their future,’ Enterline said.

Enterline said she believes although the increase in voter turnout was amazing, she was surprised and bewildered by the fact that BU numbers were not a reflection of the overall election.

‘When I sat down and took a look at the numbers I was very surprised to see that Mitt Romney did not win in any of the Boston University precincts,’ Enterline said. ‘It is evident that the voting group consisting of people 18-25 have very strong beliefs when it comes to the voting decision, but is disheartening to see that the actual numbers are different than those we saw on campus.

‘We obviously have very different opinions than the older voting population, but if we don’t get enough people our age to get to the polls and vote, political candidates will simply overlook our opinions.’

Enterline explained according to the college voter tally, both John Kerry and Shannon O’Brien were landslide victors in their respective races.

‘In precinct 10 there were 781 voters of which 52 percent of the vote went to Shannon O’Brien, 36 percent went to Mitt Romney, 8 percent went to Jill Stein and less than 1 percent went to Barbara Johnson and Carla Howell,’ Enterline said. In addition to the gubernatorial race, John Kerry defeated Michael Cloud 535 [68 percent] votes to 120 [15 percent].

‘Furthermore, in precinct 21 there were 254 voters, and once again O’Brien was a clear winner,’ Enterline said.

Of these voters, O’Brien received 61 percent of the votes, Romney got 20 percent, Stein received 16 percent of the votes with Howell receiving 2 percent and Johnson bringing in less than 1 percent. The Kerry-Cloud race saw similar results to precinct 10 with Kerry receiving 76 percent of the votes and Cloud getting only 13 percent of the votes.

Enterline explained there are several possible reasons that BU students voted for certain candidates.

‘Many times students’ backgrounds, organization involvement, ideology, party preference, and parents’ party choice affect the way they vote, but it seems like in this election those were minor reasons for the results,’ Enterline said. For many BU students, the negative smear campaign begun by Mitt Romney was a major turnoff.

‘Furthermore, O’Brien benefited because statistics have shown that many people of higher education tend to be a little more Democratic in their vote. Moreover, it seems that Stein’s third party numbers were so high due to her increased presence on campus, the fact that she did not get involved in smear campaigns, and as an underdog they saw her battling to be heard and make her points known.’

‘In the end, as a student, O’Brien with her general Democratic stance on school funding and education, was the inevitable choice, students said. Although it would have been nice to see Stein become governor, I think the third parties are far to naive to be able to keep control in the dirty business world of the Massachusetts political system.’

On the other hand, Elizabeth Sherman, a COM sophomore, said she believes because of the states financial issues, a business-oriented governor is needed to fix the state’s situation.

‘Ultimately we need a business-oriented governor to clean things up and reorganize the mess Massachusetts finds itself in,’ said Sherman. Personally, I think that Shannon O’Brien seemed to be way too aggressive in her campaign and my vote was swayed toward Romney because of her apparent insincerity.’

Trisha Chilson, a CAS freshman, said that her Republican tendencies and personal dislike of Shannon O’Brien were the main reasons she voted for Romney.

‘I live in the same town as Shannon O’Brien and I really dislike her,’ Chilson said. ‘Not only that, but I am not pro choice and do not believe in bilingual education.’

Enterline says that she and the organization are pleased with the turnout in these elections but from now until the next elections they will be working much harder to further increase awareness, turnout, and recognition of EnviroCitizen in general.

‘It would be really great if we could create a stronger coalition of members that work with EnviroCitizen,’ Enterline said.

‘At Northeastern they had a political smack down and it would amazing if we could bring such political events to Boston University,’ she said. ‘Looking at the numbers there was definitely a big increase in voters, but numbers like 42 percent and 18 percent turnout in districts is not good enough.’