Maya Rawal | Abstaining from apathy

The Maya Project | We have a responsibility to take control of our futures, and that means voting for what we believe in.

By Maya Rawal 11/06/14 1:02pm

To v ote, or not to vote, that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to vote with ignorance or not to vote at all.

This isn’t quite the dilemma that Hamlet had in mind, but as of this past Tuesday, it seems slightly more relevant. The 2014 midterm elections were the first in which I and many of my peers were eligible to vote. While there were plenty of “I voted!” Facebook statuses, friends also wondered if or where they were eligible, or regretfully realized they never applied for an absentee ballot. More still had apparently decided their vote didn’t matter, or that a vote for the “lesser of two evils” was pointless.

I somehow managed to think of the elections around a month ago, so I registered, requested an Illinois absentee ballot online and proudly sent mine in. As of Tuesday, I still faced the question of whether I was qualified to do so. I’ve concluded that I most definitely was.

The two sides of the argument go something like this: either you shouldn’t vote if you’re ignorant of the issues and stances — simply going along party lines or choosing randomly — or, alternatively, you have both the right and obligation to vote, regardless of your level of political literacy.

There’s no simple answer to this problem. Ideally, we would all follow our civic responsibility to be informed voters, thus creating an optimal situation for American democracy as a whole. Most people would argue that this is an unfeasible goal. Regardless, everyone over 18 does have the legal right to vote, and political ignorance alone can’t take that away.

However, I do think we need to readjust our line of thinking. It takes minimal effort to quickly read up on the candidates and fill out a ballot. I’m certainly no expert on this year’s election, and I would have a hard time holding my own in a debate with any of the dozens of students involved in campus political organizations. But half an hour of strategic web browsing supplemented what I already know and believe in, and gave me a good sense of who and what to vote for.

The fact is, our generation needs to start showing up at the polls. The leaders we elected on Tuesday as state governors and congressmen are the people who will shape the next few years of policy — those laws and ideas that will impact our lives well into adulthood. Can anyone really think that voting doesn’t matter, or abstain out of pure apathy, knowing that those decisions will confront you as soon as you seek employment or an independent living situation?

However, we still aren’t voting. Campus turnout at polling booths has steadily declined for midterm elections since 2006, as reported in a Daily Pennsylvanian article published Wednesday. Nationwide, the trend is similar. In 2012, according to exit polls, people under 30 comprised 19 percent of voters, with people over 65 at 17 percent . Those numbers have dropped to 12 percent and risen to 26 percent, respectively, according to current data.

These numbers do nothing but support the accusations of laziness and apathy with which our generation is often labeled. Now is the time to start caring about the decisions Americans are making — we need to realize that we should actively participate in our futures, rather than allow our parents and grandparents to dictate them for us.

If 99 out of 100 people all decided not to vote because their one vote wouldn’t affect the outcome, the one remaining guy would determine the result entirely. If those 99 people decided to skip voting just because one candidate was slightly less terrible than the other, they would lose their voices and be unable to enact any change whatsoever. That’s not how democracy is supposed to work.

Many of my friends back home have bemoaned the Quinn-Rauner gubernatorial race, citing Illinois’s governmental corruption and the general undesirability of both candidates. But by assuming that filling out a ballot was therefore worthless, they gave more power to the ballots of those who did vote, and ensured an outcome in which they had zero say.

That doesn’t seem like an ideal outcome for a nyone .

Maya Rawal is a College sophomore from River Forest, Ill. Her email address is mrawal@sas.upenn.edu. “The Maya Project” appears every Thursday.

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