voting is hot

It's backwards. The turn out I mean. More people go out and vote in an election where their vote is dilluted and filtered through an intermediary body, the electoral college, than go out and vote in elections where they directly elect someone. What the hell is wrong with people? I blame the media in part, but really they are just whores packaging and reselling us what we want to hear and see. At least most of the time.

So what's wrong with people that they can't see the so called "off year" elections as the big deal they really are? My guess is it's just not as sexy as voting for president. Oooh, president, you know? One way to address low turn out for elections then would be more hype of a sexy sort. I advocate t-shirts and pins that say "Kiss me, I voted!" Yeah, it's dumb but think about how cool it would be if as many people voted and got into voting as are into say St. Patrick's day. And along those lines, there should be festivities around voting and political participation. Voting eve and day bar nights, including politically themed trivia games. Costumes might be fun, dress up as your favorite (or least favorite) politician, statesman, or political concept (liberty, justice, bureaucracy).

Here's one for you. There's all sorts of bitching and moaning about the lack of participation in the under 25 set. Ok, so you'd think folks would do something to address that, right? All of these proposals would help. Less commercial and frivolous would be if universities took an active role in promoting political participation. My own university, for example, has NOTHING up on the website about voting, voter registration, where students can vote, etc. Any visits by politicians to our campus are announced through chalk on the sidewalks, not through university wide email or posting on any of the various university sites. This sends a message that the university administration just doesn't care about engaging students in active citizenship. And why should they? If the students started noticing state level political processes, they might start lobbying their state legislators about issues which the university would rather they not care about, e.g. rising tuition costs, too high student to faculty ratios, and corroding or unsafe student facilities.

I'm about to go vote in my new town. Registering was one of the first things I did after moving in. I can't imagine doing things any other way. When more young people feel this way, then maybe we'll see some interesting changes in our government. Until then, I'm thinking of starting a club at my university for the sole purpose of making and distributing "Voting is hot" t-shirts. Because it is.