It's difficult to be an undergraduate student and maintain a sense of civic duty. Thanks to exit polls, census information and just about every statistic on the subject of voter apathy, the college-age voter is easily identified as the most indifferent. A reprehensible trend, indeed, but a trend that has remained since the 18-and-up crowd was given the opportunity to cast a ballot.
The general election this November will probably solidify the trend, and in 2008, a new wave of lethargic civil participants will carry the torch. So why is it so difficult for college students to vote in the same numbers as other groups?
Because we're not directly asked to. Again, reprehensible, but reality nonetheless.
It's universal application, too, from voting for president to voting for the taxes that affect MSU undergraduate students.
All students pay a certain amount of taxes each semester via their tuition - for MSU's undergraduate student government and this newspaper, to name two. But to change the taxes, or introduce a new one, half of the MSU undergraduate community needs to vote on it for the results to count.
Predictably, disenchanted franchise, this doesn't happen. When Eco, an environmental student group, levied administrators to include a $5 clean energy tax for undergraduates, about 17,500 voters were needed. About 4,000 showed up.
Currently, The Student Tax Association - a focus group of university students and employees - is working to amend that policy. The policy requiring a certain threshold of student voters is now 20-years-old and the committee says its time for a change.
We couldn't agree more. Modifications of existing taxes do not require a threshold of voters, but new taxes do. When groups propose a new tax and administrators give us the chance to reflect the majority of the campus, we fall flat.
The tax - be it for good or evil - never sees the light of day, nailed down swiftly by the historical tradition of college voter apathy. The Student Tax Association is investigating how to change the 20-year-old tax policy, and we're offering a solution.
Throw it in our faces whether we want to vote or not.
If undergraduates aren't asked to vote, the likelihood of it happening is slight. It's reprehensible reality, but it doesn't need to continue.
If a new tax affecting students requires the majority of undergraduate student support to pass or fail, we find a global e-mail - think President M. Peter McPherson's holiday wishes or his budget concerns that pop up in your inbox - a feasible avenue of rubbing our noses in the fact we aren't good voters.
If votes are to be cast via the Internet, include a link to the appropriate site. Should it require voting in person, say where and when and address the issue at hand. Undergraduate students need that nudge in the direction of civic duty to take an active role, and the results could speak volumes.
Required voter turnout is an expectation of college students that simply isn't reasonable. To promote the issues that affect us in mind, body and pocketbook, shove the vote in our faces to see how much a student community is capable of.
