BRITTANY YEAROUT
Assistant News Editor
Despite more than 100 students who were packed into the HAWC on Tuesday night eating pizza and playing ping pong in anticipation of Super Tuesday’s results, many said Pepperdine students did not make a strong showing at the polls.
For the primaries, the presidential hopefuls placed special attention on the under-30 vote. Eleven million people in one week watched an online Pro- Barack Obama music video made by the Black Eyed Peas. However, the under-30 crowd made up a mere 16 percent of the vote in California, which is its historic average, according to Fox News.
With possible presidents pandering to students’ potential potency, many wonder what went wrong. Freshman Lindsay Jernigan said she, among many other students, just didn’t place voting as their top priority. Jernigan said students are putting so much time into studying and co-curricular activities they just kept putting off registering for an absentee ballot until it was too late.
“I think students don’t see how it affects them,” Jernigan said. “It is like, do I want to go vote or do I want to study for my test that is tomorrow because if I don’t pass I will fail the class.”
There is yet to be a national statistic on exactly how many young people voted in total for the 2008 primaries but many students said the Pepperdine turnout was minimal.
“I think our campus as a whole isn’t as involved as other students or college campuses get involved like UCLA or UCSD,” said freshman Ashley Perez. “The students are registered and having huge events right before, constantly trying to keep their campus aware, whereas for us we have a very limited scope and it is not as big of an issue on campus.”
Although Perez didn’t vote, she said it’s upsetting that more people at Pepperdine didn’t seem more interested in Super Tuesday.
“The fact that people are willing to call 100 times and vote for their favorite singer on “American Idol” but are not willing to vote for the person who will decide whether or not certain laws will be passed is ridiculous.”
Jernigan said many of her friends didn’t vote because they’re not registered in California and, if they are, they have to go to their designated precinct, which could be hours away.
“I think there is a sense of apathy and the fact that people don’t know how to go about voting,” Jernigan said. “Students are not that educated on what they need to do especially since most don’t live in California.”
Fifty percent of Pepperdine students are from out of state, according to the Pepperdine Office of Admissions.
While turnout among Pepperdine students may have still been low on Super Tuesday, a Feb. 5 article in the Los Angeles Times, “The return of the youth vote,” said it’s possible that the total amount of youth voters could increase this year. The article said this election could be different because Hillary Clinton and especially Obama have captured the attention of the youth. More are expected to vote because of the possibility of placing a first female president or first African American president into office.
Senior Katie Rokus, a political science major who drove to Pasadena to vote for John McCain, said many students in her political science classes voted.
“Although I voted in the 2004 election, this is the first time that I did background on all the candidates,” Rokus said. “I really put time into it. It wasn’t just my parents’ decision, and I have been following politics since freshman year because of my major.”
Sophomore Tara De Haan is a student who voted for the first time and said it was a monumental moment. However, she said she doesn’t think a lot of students voted and that Pepperdine students need to be more involved in politics.
“As far as doing something more proactive on campus, I think that we need to have more political events, forums or even a brochure, not just for the Democrats or Republicans but information on the candidates so that students can make a educated decision,” De Haan said.
The Student Government Association did work to get students more involved with the elections. They helped register 120 students with “Rock the Vote” and sponsored the event in the HAWC.
Sophomore Rae Cascio is a housing senator for Greek Row who helped with the event.
“The problem with this election was not a lot of people are registered in Malibu. So the No. 1 thing I tried to do is get all the information out there for people to get an absentee ballot,” Cascio said. “I don’t think a lot of people voted today because of the problem with getting back to where they are registered at but hopefully more people will vote in the next one.”
02-07-2008
