With the Nov. 4 midterm elections looming, the deadline for registering to vote in Massachusetts was Wednesday. Voting among the demographic of 18- to 24-year olds has never been positive, but that does not mean all young people should hide from the polls.
Valiant efforts have been made both nationally and locally to encourage young people to vote. The “Rock the Vote“ campaign, which so many celebrities like to be photographed supporting, is clearly aimed at young people, who are more inclined to “rock” than older voters. And here at Boston University, the Student Government held camp in the George Sherman Union to sponsor TurboVote, an online voter service that quickens the process. Yet as of Friday, only 50 students had registered to vote through the system, and year after year, polls show a depressing number of young people making it to the polls.
“It’s generally found that the older a person gets, the more likely they are to vote,” said John Berg, a political science professor at Suffolk University. “Students are in school. They’re thinking about school, and they’re thinking that the events and issues they care about tend to be on their campus. They don’t really hear about what’s going in Massachusetts. It’s not that they don’t care. It’s just that they don’t really hear about it.”
During the 2012 election, only 49.9 percent of 18-to-24-year-old Massachusetts residents voted, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And that was in the presidential election. The 2010 midterm election statistics are even gloomier, with only 21.3 percent of Massachusetts’ youngest voter demographic making it to the polls.
Young people in general may be apathetic to voting, but this attitude is causing more problems for the young generation than the politicians. Government officials are known for catering to the demographics that vote. If students and young people cannot prove themselves as a worthy demographic, our needs will largely be ignored in favor of the groups who utilize their voting powers.
“Politicians pay attention to the interests of demographics groups that vote heavily,” Berg said. “There’s a lot of attention paid to older people who are at or near the stage of collecting social security and Medicare. Right now, one of the big crises for students is loans… It doesn’t get the attention it deserves. If more students voted, there would be a lot more attention paid to improving that.”
OK, so this is a midterm election, and everyone knows that the midterms are not as exciting and media-hyped as the presidential elections, but these elections are more exciting than one might think, especially here in Massachusetts. Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, has been in office since 2006, making it eight years since the Commonwealth has seen new leadership. Now, Republican candidate Charlie Baker and Democratic candidate Martha Coakley are neck in neck for the seat, with Coakley edging Charlie Baker by only 1.7 percent, according to a Real Clear Politics poll released Saturday. The race for governor is truly a toss-up, and every vote will matter.
“Right now, the governor may well be Republican,” Berg said. “Certainly, if Republicans got out and voted, they could make an impact. Especially this year, because the election of the governor is very close, and between Republican votes and Democrat votes and Independent votes, whoever they vote for, that vote is going to count.”
The big questions for college students, aside from who to vote for, is what state to vote in. Students at BU come from far more states than just Massachusetts, but once settled in Boston, their lives in general become wrapped up in the culture of the city. Now, the editors at The Daily Free Press are a little biased, because our job is to remain informed about Boston and Massachusetts politics, but as a whole, information about Massachusetts is far more accessible than information about the states we left behind. After all, it is The Boston Globe, not Northwest Georgia’s Cherokee County Herald or whatever your local newspaper of choice is, lying around the school’s hallways.
Didn’t many of us decide to attend BU for the fact that Boston is a cool city and we wanted to get involved in it? Getting involved in the city often means getting involved with its politics, and Boston is the capital of Massachusetts. As long as you’ve lived here for more than 90 days, (sorry freshmen), we as BU students are technically residents of the Commonwealth, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. This status requires us to serve jury duty here, so why shouldn’t we vote here too?
Wherever you decide to register, the most important thing to do is vote. Opportunities to register exist, and even though they can be inconvenient, it’s important to take advantage of your civic duty.
