 "Photo: Steven Falk/The Observer")
Reports of problems affecting young voters were widespread this election season, ranging from delayed absentee ballots and distribution of misinformation to blatant attempts to suppress the youth vote. However, in spite of these issues, preliminary estimates of the turnout among young voters, according to the Arizona Republic, stand between 50 and 54.2 percent, up from 42 percent in 2000.
Some of the issues with voting, specifically confusion regarding absentee voting, hit especially close to home for some Fordham students, including Megan Branch, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’11. Branch, a Florida resident, is unsure if her vote even counted. After months of struggling to get her absentee ballot, she finally turned to an online application to receive it.
Branch applied for her absentee ballot three months in advance for Florida’s primary election. She never received her ballot. “I was told over the phone that my ballot would be sent in a few days—I never received it,” she said.
Last month Branch called her local supervisor of elections for a general election absentee ballot.
“I was asked a ridiculous amount of stupid questions by the woman taking down my information,” Branch said. The woman questioned Branch about her student status and her permanent address before Branch became discouraged. “I eventually ... hung up. I requested a ballot online a week or so later.”
Confusion regarding absentee voting has been the most widely reported problem Fordham students have faced, according to Arlene Pancza Graham, assistant dean for freshmen and sophomores at FCLC. Graham stated that many students were unclear about their state’s specific rules for voting via absentee.
Graham encountered students who wanted their ballots faxed to their home states, a procedure that is allowed in some but not all states.
“I cannot say with certainty that the students I spoke to were being scammed, but I do think it’s worth bringing such schemes to the attention of our students, many of whom are first-time voters,” Graham said.
Ella Ceron, FCLC ’11, also had problems with her absentee ballot. A resident of Los Angeles, Ceron simultaneously registered to vote and applied for her absentee ballot.
“They sent me back a letter saying that I wasn’t even registered, so I couldn’t vote absentee, and to please register to get my ballot,” she said.
“I had to send something back registering myself again, and I finally got the ballot and the voting card to mail in,” Ceron said.
The widespread misinformation and confusion about absentee voting led Graham to send out a campus-wide e-mail informing students about extensive student voter disenfranchisement. The e-mail also urged students to make sure that they followed their state-specific laws.
The e-mail stated, “College students are expected to be a major voting block in this year’s election...Recent media reports have identified college students as one of several groups who are being targeted for disenfranchisement.” The e-mail included a link to Canivote.org, a Web site that will verify a voter’s eligibilty and status.
Canivote.org is among a number of organizations dedicated to informing and energizing voters. Web sites such as Rockthevote.com have poured millions of dollars into urging the youth to register to vote. Even the candidates’ own Web sites include links to register to vote and guidelines about voting.
In addition to absentee confusion, students across the country encountered a number of other problems while trying to vote. Mentioned in a recent AP article is a report of election officials warning students that voting anywhere other than their hometown will lead them to lose their student loans. The article refers to a letter sent out by officials in Montgomery County, Va. telling students that voting at college will declare them as non-dependents, which could possibly lead to a loss of financial aid. However, according to Fairvote.org, a Supreme Court ruling in 1979 clearly gives students the right to vote in the communities in which they attend school.
ABC news reported on an apparent attempt to suppress the student vote in Florida, where students at the University of Florida received text messages urging Democratic voters to vote on Nov. 5, due to “high voter turnout.” The article stated that the texts came from an anonymous source and affected several students on campus. The administration took notice and sent out an e-mail to students to correct the false information.
After hearing horror stories of absentee headaches and misinformation, Sarah Shultz, FCLC ’11, said that the only way to feel safe while voting is to do it the old fashioned way. Shultz traveled home to Pennsylvania to vote in person.
“It was the conventional paper ballot,” Shultz said. “I know my vote was counted.”
Tuesday last week we all celebrated. We huddled around TVs in apartments and bars. We raised toasts and drank champagne. We ran out onto the streets, hooted and banged pots and pans and made the irresistible walk to Times Square. We laughed and cried. In our celebrations, however, we may have ignored one unsettling fact: it isn’t over. The culture war that gripped the last several months of the election is not over. Not by a long shot. More worryingly, it probably won’t end any time soon.
While 52.4 percent of voters chose Barack Obama, the rest did not. While Obama won a huge majority of the electoral votes—enough, in political terms, for a “mandate”—many of those states were won by only a few percentage points. Despite Obama’s solid policies, charisma and inspiring message, and despite the despicable campaign that John McCain ran toward the end of the race, nearly half the country still voted against the senator from Illinois. Some of these voters no doubt had understandable concerns about Obama’s proposed policies, or about his readiness to lead. A great many others, however, voted against the first African-American president because, quite simply, they are bigots.
Many Americans hate or at least distrust minorities, or liberals, or intellectuals. We saw them mocked on The Daily Show and sympathized with on Fox News. A unfortunately large number of Americans went into the election mistakenly believing that Obama was a Muslim or an Arab, and these too we have seen. These people have not gone away.
These are the people that rallied around Sarah Palin and turned out in the thousands as she made her transition from conservative hockey mom to right wing firebrand. These are the people that cared so fervently about Reverend Wright and William Ayers. These are the people that were convinced, beyond all reason, that Obama was an Islamist terrorist plant, sent to destroy America from the inside out, and shouted “Kill him!” at McCain-Palin rallies. Do we really expect them to change their mind now, just because they have lost?
After many past elections, much of the public that voted for the losing candidate bite down their bitterness and decide to give the new president a chance. In 2000 my father lectured me on how presumptuous it was to immediately level judgement against Bush. I doubt, however, that many of McCain and Palin’s supporters will give Obama that chance. From the start our new president’s attempts to unify the country and bring us through the economic crisis, the energy crisis and the climate crisis may be stymied by the very forces of bigotry that drove the most radical segments of the American Right to oppose him so desperately.
I do not mean to suggest that those who voted Republican are all racists, or even mostly racists. But the racists do exist, and they are preparing to wage a gruesome war for the soul of the Republican party. On their side are radical pro-lifers, homophobes, Islamophobes, and some fundamentalist Christians. Opposing them are economic conservatives and wealthy captains of industry who care little for the social issues that are so incendiary to so much of the Republican base. To put it bluntly and, I admit, partisanly, it is conflict between those those with money and those with hate, and to be honest I’m not sure who I would rather see win.
For the rest of us, we should remember that while the tide of the culture war may have shifted this election, we remain a deeply divided country. A powerful racial barrier may have been broken, but racism still exists, as does anti-intellectualism and a deep resentment for urban lifestyles by many Americans living in rural areas. If we want real change we have to come to terms with these facts. We have to be wary and vigilant of hate dressed up as values. We have to show compassion and equanimity towards the hateful until their anger wanes. We have to teach our kids to be better.
Can we in the blue states reconcile with those in the red states? I’m not sure. But our President-elect thinks so. From the start Barack Obama has argued that “we are not as divided as our politics suggests.” He has reached out to people and places that did not bother to hide their initial distrust toward him. Some people and places came around eventually, but quite a few never did. This campaign, like so much in politics, brought out the very worst in people, and I’m not sure the scars from that will fade any time soon. But Tuesday last week, when we celebrated in our homes and in the streets, I believe we saw the best in people as well. The culture war isn’t over, but it isn’t lost, either. Not by a long shot.
Be the first to comment on this article!