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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

4 dumb reasons not to vote for IUSA

Let’s face it. Many students’ only encounter with the IU Student Association election April 2-3 will be pretending to listen to music through their ear buds as they pass smiling, T-shirt clad campaign volunteers beckoning to them from polling places outside Woodburn Hall.

Most of the time, abstainers have reasons to pass on the polls. But those reasons often aren’t terribly compelling ones, such as “I like to commit massive electoral fraud.”

If you ask an apathetic student why he or she is not participating in the election, you might hear one of the following responses:

1. “Student government doesn’t do anything.”

If IUSA did what we normally expect governments to do, your meal points would be redistributed, your dorm would be wiretapped and anyone caught trying to steal a fish from the Showalter Fountain would be droned.

Student government’s most basic role, as outlined in the Code of Student Rights, is to give students some input into the making of University policies that affect them.

It’s unglamorous. But it’s better than no representation at all, and it’s arguably more important than the big-ticket platform items that lack certain success.

When you vote for IUSA, you vote for more than an attempt to put a pub in the Indiana Memorial Union, get tax-free textbooks or install solar panels around campus.

You also send people to speak on your behalf to University administrators. One ticket will assuredly do that job every year. Your vote can help pick the right one.

2. “I’m on my way to class.”

Oh, really? Where’s your backpack?

In all seriousness, since we don’t live in ancient Athens, you don’t need to travel for days to cast a vote. Polling stations will be located at many high-traffic locations across campus. You are almost guaranteed to bump into one. Filling out a ballot takes mere moments. It’s painless. I promise.

By the way, voting is done online, so you can vote from home if interacting with people isn’t your thing.

That’s right. It takes less physical effort to cast a ballot than to visit a vending machine for a pack of Skittles. And you feel much better about yourself afterward.

3. “I don’t know anything about the tickets.”

The only thing worse than a non-vote is an uninformed vote. But how can we possibly inform ourselves about the election without nonstop exposure to vicious attack ads?

Luckily, we’re college students. So we know how to do a little research. YOUniversity, Hoosiers 4 Solutions and SPARC all have websites, Facebook pages and extensive coverage in this newspaper.

Do your homework before you vote. Don’t make your mind up at the polls.

4. “Student government doesn’t affect me.”

IUSA’s executive budget alone affects students to the tune of $100,000.

True, it only costs you, personally, a couple of dollars in the student fees you pay each year. But if I commit to spending $2 at Kilroy’s on Kirkwood, I still want to have a say in what it gets spent on.

I apply the same principle to student government.

And IUSA has spent that money on things I find useful.

IU bus tracker limits the amount of time I have to spend waiting in the cold for a bus. Zipcar lets me move my stuff in and out of storage each year.

Before you head to class April 2-3, please take a moment to get to know the candidates and what they stand for.

And when you walk by a voting table, please don’t run away. The campaign workers don’t bite. They just want you to feed them a well-reasoned vote.

­— danoconn@indiana.edu

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