It was hard to miss the sleek laptop that was sitting on an old wooden table right outside of Alpine Bagels.
"What is this?" I asked as I approached the table.
"Duke Student Government Elections. Come vote," said the person behind the table.
"But... I don't know anyone. All these names mean nothing to me--I might as well fill them out at random," I replied.
"Come on man, you've seen people's posters... just vote."
After a few more exchanges I walked away without voting. There was no point.
Whether it's because people generally see it as the cornerstone of the American democracy or simply because they have no way of thinking about it otherwise, voting seems to be a sacred act to many on this campus. But votes do not always mean what we would like them to mean, and the DSG election for legislators is a perfect example.
As I understand it, the logic behind voting for legislators goes something like this. If a candidate receives a large number of votes, that means that many students were impressed with his or her potential to serve as a DSG legislator. Thus, the top vote-getters are presumably the ones who deserve to serve in the DSG because they've gathered the support of the student body. In other words, a large enough number of students found them to be competent enough to serve as legislators. Those who fail to garner the necessary number of votes consequently fail to win a seat, but, to be fair, someone most likely encourages these people to get involved in other ways so that their talents and interest in the organization are not wasted.
Judging from this, the goal of the entire voting process seems to be to create an air of legitimacy and popular support for those individuals who routinely participate in an organization that handles hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds each year. And all of these are legitimate assumptions that work very well if you assume that each voter knows something about the candidates' abilities and has a vested interest in seeing his friends become DSG legislators.
But a problem occurs when you're faced with an uninterested, apathetic and uninformed potential voter like myself. I honestly can't say that I remember vividly any candidate's poster, nor do I remember hearing anyone tell me about all the changes they'd like to bring about as a student legislator.
Moreover, this year none of my friends were running for a position so I truly had no reason to cast a ballot. When I looked at the sheet of possible names, I couldn't recognize a single one. My vote would've been no different than a random string of numbers generated by a computer.
So, why bother? The fundamental purpose of my vote was non-existent.
I still think that the basic truth about voting is that it is a right to be exercised and not a duty to be fulfilled. Or, to put it more bluntly, although everyone should be allowed to vote, not everyone should be encouraged to vote.
A lot of people consider what I've just written to be blasphemy. Actually, such a reaction is in many ways understandable since less than a century ago women and some minority groups were not allowed to vote. To take the process of voting so lightly and imply that there is nothing inherently special about a right that many men died to protect is, I'll admit, somewhat unnerving.
But regardless of how uncomfortable this notion might sound, the end result is the same. Voting is meant to serve as an expression of genuinely felt preferences and when such preferences are absent there is no point in voting.
The same can be said of the right to freedom of speech. Although you certainly have a limited right to speak your mind, the basic assumption is that you will use such right judiciously--that you'll speak up when you have something to say. If it clearly appears that you have no interest or knowledge of a certain issue, most normal people won't pressure you to express your non-existent thoughts.
I think the same attitude should be applied to voting. Instead of encouraging students to cast a ballot for legislators they've never heard of, perhaps DSG should make a concerted effort to inform the rest of the campus of what these legislators intend to do once they take their oaths. Not only would that increase the link between the student body and its representatives, it would also introduce a certain level of accountability for our elected officials.
Thus, the goal of the election would be an increase in the overall quality of each individual vote instead of a high voter turnout at all costs. But to do so would mean giving up an important benefit of a high voter turnout--the illusion that a lot more people on this campus care about certain issues than is really the case.
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