Time to learn, vote in the 2012 election

It’s an election year. Mitt Romney currently leads the field of Republican nominees. With the Florida primary over, he owns approximately 70 percent of the votes and is projected to carry all 50 of the state’s delegates in the Republican National Convention.

If you had trouble understanding any of the above paragraph, it might be time for a political IQ checkup.

Primaries are America’s dialogues with itself to decide who is worthy of representing each political party. Many people, college-aged students especially, find the primaries uninteresting or too complex to follow. 

Students should have, at the very least, a basic understanding of the electoral process at the local, state and national level and participate in these processes whenever possible.

According to civicyouth.org, just 48 percent of youth voted in the last presidential election. This already abysmal figure drops considerably in local and midterm elections. Since the main goal of a political candidate is to be elected, they pay most attention to the groups that vote the most, thus most are tailored toward the middle-aged and elderly demographics.

If young people were more consistent in their voting habits, the issues that concern them would receive more attention from their representatives.

Aside from voting, the youth can also write or email elected representatives as an effective method of lobbying. Youth are also valuable as political volunteers, so offering your free time to a preferred party’s campaign office can be a rewarding form of political participation. Finally, with the advent of social networking websites, youth can participate virtually to communicate their political views. This technique was particularly effective in recent efforts against SOPA and PIPA.

Every student must participate, there’s no excuse not to.