GCSU voter turnout above average

Despite gloomy skies and a depressing drizzle of rain, Katrina Verde stood her moral ground and turned out to vote at the Baldwin County Court House during this year’s primary elections.
“I think that if you are going to be part of the government and understand government, then you need to vote and stand up for what you believe in,” said Verde, a sophomore early childhood education major. “I don’t think that anybody has the right to complain about the government unless they have taken part in it and voted.”
But Verde, a first time voter, is among the minority of students at GCSU to actually appear at the polls. According to an informal survey by The Colonnade, only 35 percent of GCSU students voted.    
According to the Web site Civic Youth, only 24 percent of people 18 to 29 years of age voted in the mid-term elections.
Though GCSU’s voter turnout is higher than the national average, President Dorothy Leland hopes the findings do not reflect the habits of the entire student population.  
“Let’s just say that I hope that sample is not representative of the student body as a whole,” Leland said. “I think that one of the most important things that we can do as citizens is participate in the electoral process. I think that a good deal of effort was gone through to make it easy for students to vote. Students have a lot of power. (They have) a voice that influences locally, statewide and nationally. (Students) are among our better-educated

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citizens, which I think is essential for democracy.”
  Of the 51 students surveyed, 40 were registered to vote. With 78.4 percent of students registered to vote, GCSU is well above the national average of 43 percent, according to the Census Web site.
This high figure could be attributed to the success of  Rock the Vote, a national research project. Dr. Gregg Kaufman and rhetoric professor Dr. Janet Hoffmann headed GCSU’s local branch of the study.
“It is very important that students get involved with elections because this generation, students age 18-24 years old, make up as large a demographic slice of our country as the baby boom generation, which is my generation,” said Kaufman, director of the Coverdell Institute. “Your generation will make up 37 percent of the American population. These demographic statistics indicate that this generation has a tremendous potential political power influence.” 
Of the surveyed students who were registered to vote, 37.5 percent of females and 56.2 percent of males actually voted. 
“I believe that student involvement in the American political process is absolutely critical to the health of our democracy and to solving not only domestic challenges that we have in this country, but some international issues such as global warming and terrorism in the world,” Kaufman said.
The Colonnade survey also revealed that, on a scale of 1 to 10, students on average think they are moderately informed with a mean rating of 6.6.
Kaufman said GCSU students go the extra mile to self educate about the important political issues and candidates.
“I had a friend who is actually really informed, so he told me a lot about what is going on,” Verde said. “So I think that I was more informed in politics than I ever was before.”

Information contributed by Jessica Murphy, Renato Oliveira and Aubrey Koscelski

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 17 2006. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry