Maia Ferdman
Gov. Jerry Brown recently visited UCLA and spoke at a “Yes on Prop 30″ rally that promoted Proposition 30. The rally was held at Bruin Plaza on Oct. 16.
A couple of weeks ago more than a hundred girls lined up, waiting excitedly for free underwear at Victoria’s Secret’s “PINK Nation Tailgate Tour.” Just down Bruin Walk, Gov. Jerry Brown spoke to a slightly larger showing of around 200 students about a proposed ballot measure.
The issues addressed by our governor ““ and any political figure ““ should elicit far greater interest from students than panties. Yet these two events are just examples of a broader political apathy at UCLA.
To start, a look at 2008 Daily Bruin election statistics shows only half of registered voters made it to the polls.
This year, with the introduction of a simplified online voter registration process, coupled with ballot boxes spread across campus and the ease of the vote-by-mail process, there is no reason Bruins cannot far surpass their 2008 benchmark.
A survey conducted by the Daily Bruin and UCLA Department of Statistics shows that 90 percent of students who responded are voting, which is far above the national average.
But if 2008 is any indication, and only half of those students actually vote, where does that leave us?
An argument one might hear is that students aren’t voting because they feel uninformed about the main issues of the election.
Yet it’s not as if this campus lacks the resources for students themselves to find out more about the election. Through programs on the Hill, voter registration campaigns and efforts by the Undergraduate Students Association Council external vice president’s office, UCLA is a campus brimming with intellect and ample resources.
To be uninformed is essentially an unwillingness to be informed, not an inability ““ students should not wait for the carrot to be held in front of them in order to move.
After all, either Obama’s or Romney’s policies will be in place when most of us graduate. They will greatly affect our level of student debt, our job prospects and our tax rates.
That’s significantly more influence on our lives than the grade we receive on our next midterm or the outfit we wear to the next party. As students we should strive to set aside at least a couple hours to review the main issues of the election and then take action.
Our vote does make a difference.
One common perception among California voters is that they cannot sway California’s historically blue preference in the presidential election ““ an easy rationale for avoiding the polls next week.
But at the very least, voting can serve as a symbolic gesture to signal one’s conviction in the democratic process and the issues taken up by a candidate.
Most students surveyed said education was the most important factor driving their voting decision. However, 21 percent of them said they were not informed about Obama’s education policies and 10 percent indicated no opinion.
That makes 31 percent of students with no stance on the issue they consider most important this election.
Rodrigo Jimenez, a fourth-year political science student and co-director of the external vice president’s office’s StudentsVOTE! campaign, registered over 3,700 students with his team in the past couple of weeks. He said that students often approached him while registering and asked him what and who to vote for.
On-campus residences have easy to understand posters and resources students can turn to if these propositions are confusing or seem overwhelming. Additionally, the BruinsVOTE!’s Facebook page has simple summaries of every proposition.
Once informed, students should do more than just vote.
Fewer than 19 percent of student respondents to the Bruin’s joint survey indicated they were involved in political student groups, 12.9 percent reported that they participated in a student protest and 7.7 percent said they worked on a political campaign, whether local, state or national.
“(Students) might not all care about politics, about Romney or Obama, but they care about something,” Jimenez said. He pointed to organizations like the Pediatric AIDS Coalition as proof that UCLA students are committed to service and to mobilizing for change.
If we are capable of creating these sorts of waves outside the political sphere, there is no reason we can’t do the same in our elections. We should take that passion, that self-starting attitude and that vigor and invest in our future.
Email Ferdman at mferdman@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet us @DBOpinion.