Educate students first

Epictetus once said, "Only the educated are free." Under IUSA's watch, though, the free aren't very educated. IUSA has squandered our student activities fund on a car in order to woo non-voters into the polls through their "Vote Hard" initiative. I suggest they instead attempt to redeem their wasted splurge with a "Vote Well" campaign.\nI agree with Kirkwood that there is a real problem with college-age students not voting. According to the U.S. Federal Election Committee, only 18.5 percent of people aged between 18 and 24 voted in the 1998 election (http://fecweb1.fec.gov/pages/98demog/98demog.htm).\nBut IUSA has missed the point entirely. The problem is not really that most young people aren't voting. The real problem is that most of this age group are ignorant about government and don't care about political issues. \nVoting is a serious privilege granted to all of us equally. Any of-age idiot with a mailing address can participate. The beauty of the system is that people who don't care generally don't vote. Voting abuse comes when outspoken leaders (ahem, Kirkwood) lure the apathetic, politically ignorant citizen into the booth for one or two issues (like textbooks and tuition). We could learn a great lesson from our Florida counterparts. Only looking at the numbers, democratic leaders attempting to increase the power of black voters succeeded in their 2000 effort. Black voter turnout reached a whopping 65 percent in Florida that year, voting largely democratic. But according to Cedric Muhammad in his essay entitled, "Florida's Lessons For Black Leaders," although black leaders emphasized high turnout, their initiative failed because "more attention should have been given to voter education and proper voting techniques" (Dec. 8, 2000, http://www.blackelectorate.com).\nGet out the vote campaigns will not be successful until they focus on decreasing political ignorance. Only small numbers of people go to the polls every election because only a small number of people care or know enough about civic issues to take any action. \nIn his essay, "Voting Shouldn't Be a Right But a Privilege," Barrett Kalellis, a frequent contributor to the Detroit News commented, "In our republican form of government, unfettered universal suffrage has been taken to an extreme. Why is it that there are age and residency qualifications for voting, but none for the comprehension of elementary civics?" (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/kalellis1.html)\nRequiring citizens to pass a test in order to vote may be a slippery slope. The lesson here, though, is not to encourage politically ignorant citizens to vote. Those who care about politics and government will want to vote, and already do.\nThe power is not in the numbers, but in the quality of each vote. Many can vote in an election, but if they all vote for a politically inept candidate who ignores the electorate, what has voting accomplished?\nHopefully, when the voter registration deadline has passed, IUSA will concentrate its efforts on educating new sign-ups not to vote hard until they are able to vote well. \nIf you're a student who associates poll booths with red sports cars and think voting this November will be "cool," before you start punching buttons, please try to learn about the candidates, the issues and our government's laws. \nThink about this: If you don't and vote anyway, you may be canceling out the vote of someone who researched the candidate and is making an informed, educated decision. Now vote well.