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BYU at the center of nonvoter vortex
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Beyond the logistics of registration and its lack of value, our leaders don't inspire us, do they? At all levels they are repeatedly pulling boneheaded stunts.
Here's a solution: Add a candidate "Mulligan" to every race. If Mulligan wins, they have to come back in 90 days with all new candidates to choose from. Or am I just being cynical?
Second, when I was a student at BYU I voted by absentee ballot for my home district in another state. I even had to find a notary to supervise my voting and I still did it.
Unless local community leaders reach out to students, students are not going to go out of their way to learn about local community issues. Most students anyways are planning on moving out of the college community when they graduate anyways, so they don't exactly have a vested interest in who is serving on the local city council for the next 2-4 years.
Most students also don't bother to read the local newspaper as they tend to get their news from national television and the internet, which usually doesn't focus on local issues. Students are also surrounded in the community by...other students. If local citizens would get to know their student neighbors, conversations would happen about local issues. Perhaps then students will care enough to vote.
Frankly, if I had my druthers, I'd actually discourage out-of-town college students from voting in local elections unless/until they had established some real ties to the local community such as home ownership or something more than a part time job. I would encourage them to vote (absentee if necessary) in their home town elections.
Of course, I have no delusions that most college students do not vote in any elections. They are simply not really paying attention to such things yet. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. A random, un-informed vote, simply for the sake of voting really does not add anything worthwhile to the process. It is one reason I'm not big on motor voter or other laws making it trivial to register.
We also have the issue of the dirty tricks and smear campaigns that are run so often. Who wants to have their life, their families lives smeared and drug through the dirt. The affluent are the ones who seem to run for these positions.
Take a look at the 2003 SLC mayoral election. Only 26% of the voters voted. The citizens who didnt' vote got what they wanted; a mayor more interested in being a national figure on the anti-war agenda that preserving the infrastructure of the city he swore to protect. Rocky's legacy should be the dilpadated police station. That is what those 76% should remember for a ong time.
Citizens who don't vote have lost their right to complain.
Therefore they are by definition not individuals voting out of state.
They are just apathetic college students, unfortunately.
If voters were more demanding and became more involved in what is taking place they can change the landscape.
Think back to the Kennedy-Nixon election. To show you how close that election was if one more person in each voting precinct in the nation had cast a vote for Nixon he would have won the election instead of Kennedy. (I am not talking about whether that was good or bad) You see how it can change things by voting.
I agree we shoud have a ballot choice on all elections from Congress down to the local ballots. That would be NON OF THE ABOVE. "New" candidates would have 30 days to declare their candidacy. The other candidates would only have the option of a write-in campaign. 60 days later after the candidates registration deadline we would have a new election. Candidates would learn that you are to represent the electorate, not your personal desires.
This would eventually eliminate many who run for the presidency.
I suspect what "Anonymous" above would say is if they tend to vote Democratic, then we shouldn't let them vote.
Thinking for yourself is frowned upon at BYU. As a result, BYU student is not skilled in thinking for himself. This would make it difficult for him to make a decision for himself in the voting booth. That may be the biggest reason for BYU student not voting. BYU student may not have the skill set to vote.
I'm not trying to be mean, but BYU student has done everything his parents, religious leaders, wife, or dorm parents have told him to do his entire life. BYU student has never made a life decision truly on his own. And now he's asked to go into a voting booth and make a decision without all those people present to make the decision for him? He'd be a fish out of water and not have a clue as to what to do.
Also, students should get informed and vote because it is likely that their interests will be closely aligned with those of students who will be moving in when they move out. So it's kind of a duty they owe to students of the future and the community as a whole.
The elections are rigged enough so that it's doesn't make much sense to vote if one hopes to affect the outcome.
The power elite encourages ordinary citizens to vote to dupe them into thinking that the people who control how tax dollars are spent actually care what taxpayers think, and create the illusion of public support for their tyrannical deeds.
One way to engage in civil disobedience is not to vote to undermine the legitimacy of those who wield power through elections.
I'm amazed how everything that happens in Utah (especially at BYU) is assumed to be caused by those Mormons out there.
I think you would find a similar trend in any small town with a large transient international student population. It isn't as prnounced at the UofU because it is more a "commuter school" where many students live at home and SLC's student population is very small percentage (because it's a bigger city and a smaller school with students spread around the city instead of on campus), so the percentage of UofU students in most SLC precincts isn't the same as BYU in Provo (where most students are consolidated on campus).
I'm sure there will always be those who assume the Mormons had something to do with it. Their known world wide for civic irresponsibility after all.
I knew several BYU students who, against the wishes of his/her parents, chose to go to BYU. Some of these people also chose, against the wishes of their friends and family, to join the LDS church. I had room mates at BYU who hated George Bush and voted for John Kerry, Alan Keyes, and apparently even Ralph Nader. I knew fans of Utah football (and just about every other school's football) at BYU. Your generalization that all BYU students are brainless, metaphorically aquatic, and male is more a reflection of your emotions than of the truth.
Somehow the majority of those registered to vote (myself included) in the precincts around BYU did not show up on registered voter records they verify your name against. This meant you had to go and grab a piece of mail or other registered notice at your current address. A severe inconvenience for pretty much everyone, students and non-students alike, and I saw at least two people leave in frustration at this point. This was the real problem.
It sounds like you will get complaints if you get too many student votes or too few.
One person suggested only letting property owners vote .... all of them do not even vote now.
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However, it turns out that young people don't vote, they didn't back then, and they still don't, and the 18 year old vote as proven to be a giant flop.