Get over it: let them vote

Not even Bono can get college students out to vote. We just don't care, or we're just too busy, or we just don't pay enough attention. So it seems, for politicians across the board, new methods for making voting convenient for students is a goal that should be universally pushed. \nWhen the Monroe County election board said Monday that it had no choice but to approve the absentee ballot requests from IU's greek houses, we're all unsure as to why they'd consider the opposite mode of action. Why would they prevent those organized groups of students from voting in any way they can?\n Perhaps their reasons for requiring an absentee ballot might not be honest. Perhaps not every student in those homes has a 12-hour workday. But as County Clerk Jim Fielder told the IDS, "There is no way of enforcing what you put on the ballots as being the truth."\nTherein lies the rub. The fact that there is no enforcement for the issue sparks the question: Should it even matter? Shouldn't the absentee ballot be opened to all, regardless of rationale?\nIn an age where more people are excited about the new color of money than they are about engaging the political process, we'd say that perhaps desperate measures are necessary. \nWhat's more, we feel that the hubbub surrounding the issue only distances voters from the process even further. On the one hand, the Republican Party is complaining that voters are being "intimidated" by the Democrats' constant challenge of the absentee ballots.\nTo this we wonder: Why are they so upset? When the turnout of the electorate increases, typically the Democratic Party benefits -- especially when that increasing electorate is comprised of the young. Why would they challenge the absentee vote?\nTo the Republicans, what's with the accusations? \n"Democrats have focused their hostility toward just one segment of the student population," Republican City Clerk candidate Matt Stevenson said at the news conference held Friday. The only evidence of such "harassing" phone calls came from an IDS reporter simply investigating the controversy.\nSuch bickering between the two parties makes crystalline the reasons why students don't want to go out of their way to participate. Here's an election issue that's nothing more than an issue about the election.\nWhen the parties throw all of their efforts in this nonsensical whizzing contest, why should voters feel any sense of urgency to support either side's real platforms? It makes us wonder if they have any at all.