Low voter turnout on campus

The rain met with a dreary turnout Tuesday as most students failed to make it to the polls to vote in this year's general election.\nIn the Bloomington 10 district, located in the Willkie Quad Center Building, the poll workers had only 16 voters turn out at just after 4 p.m., two students and 14 from the community.\n"Nobody gives a rat's ass," said Bernie Pickel, the voting inspector for Bloomington 10. "They just don't care."\nPickel said she thought the rain had no effect on voter turnout, but that student's voter apathy was the main cause.\nThalia Angell, one of two clerks at Willkie, agreed with Pickel.\n"You can't sit back and say it doesn't affect you, because it does affect you," Angell said. "It does aggravate me that people do not vote."\nBoth Angell and Pickel said they were worried that due to such low voter turnout, the government may decide to shutdown polling places in the college dorms. Pickel said it costs about $500 to work the polls for a day.\nWillkie Quad also showed little student support at the polls themselves, with the workers being over the age of most college students.\n"I'm basically going to be sitting here until I'm 100-years-old if people don't start coming in and picking up these jobs," Angell said.\nAt the polling place in Read Center, the turnout was up around 5 p.m., with about 60 voters coming through plus a few absentee ballots. One of those absentee ballots was sent in by IU President Myles Brand, whose on-campus house is in the district of Bloomington 9.\nMike Porter, the inspector for the district, said the turnout was higher than the number for the May primaries. He said the turnout was average for the district, which usually sees about 50 to 100 voters. But voter apathy still seemed low to Porter.\n"Of all the voters that have come in, there's been four or five that have been enthused," Porter said. \nJohn Lawson, the democratic judge for the district, said he believes education could help students' apathy.\n"I think they need better civics courses in high school," Porter said.\nAt the Teter Quad Informal Lounge, the number of voters by 5:15 p.m. was close to 55. The Bloomington 15 district only saw about six or seven voters come through during the May primaries.\n"I was expecting a little bit more," said Stewart Eaton, the inspector for the district. He agreed that the rain had no effect on voter turnout.\n"It never affected students going to class," Eaton said. "I don't expect that to be an issue."\nAlthough IUSA's Project Vote Hard attempted to push more students to vote in the election, most working the polls agreed that there didn't seem to be a spike in voter turnout.\n"The thing people today have got to realize is that the government you will have is the government you don't vote for," Angell said.