In the past few years, politicians have put an increasing emphasis on appealing to the 18-24-year-old demographic. Candidates invite people to like their Facebook fan pages, campaigners recruit for volunteers online and our president makes people aware of his activities through his Twitter account.
This year, Boston University jumped on that bandwagon with the introduction by the BU Student Union of a program called TurboVote, an initiative that aims to increase voting rates among college students by facilitating the voter registration process and alerting students about upcoming elections. The service advertises itself as making voting as easy as ordering from Netflix.
Increasing student involvement in politics, especially in the lead-up to important mid-term elections, is a goal that college students should be taking seriously. Mid-term elections are notorious for low turnout rates, especially among apathetic younger people. At a time of our lives when we are supposed to be maturing and making the shift into adulthood, it would be foolish to neglect our basic civic obligation to vote, as well as to encourage others to do so.
That being said, encouraging students to vote just for the sake of voting isn't necessarily the best solution. With so much emphasis put on recruiting voters, we cannot forget that it is equally important to encourage students to educate themselves on local and national politics.
The TurboVote service delivers absentee ballot request forms straight to students and text messages students when an election is coming up, making it almost absurdly easy to remember to vote. Although this isn't necessarily a bad thing, the easier it becomes to vote, the more likely it is that people will vote just for the sake of it without doing any real research about the candidates beforehand.
While we can commend Union for making an effort to do something proactive for the student body, simply encouraging students to vote is not enough. Union should also encourage students to learn what is going on so that they cast an educated vote. But ultimately, college students should care enough about the country and state that they live in to take it upon themselves to research before the elections. It is an essential part of being an adult citizen and is a responsibility that should be taken seriously, and not merely done on a whim.
So when November rolls around, get to a local polling station and vote. But don't forget to do your homework beforehand.
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