Six Percent

It’s easy for journalists to urge people to vote. They sit behind a computer screen and every couple of years tell citizens how apathetic they are and how they should take advantage of free and open elections.

They lament the fact that political participation is constantly low, with turnout for national elections hovering around 50 percent. For state and local elections they decry turnout, which can range from 20 to 30 percent.

But imploring students to vote for Temple Student Government officers is our job. And we have every right to criticize student participation in our general elections.

The collective turnout for last year’s TSG election? Six percent.

To put that number in context, about 2,000 ballots were submitted, out of a pool of about 33,000 students from all of Temple’s campuses, excluding Japan.

To take it a step further, that’s roughly equivalent to only New York residents voting for president, while the rest of the country stays at home.

This year’s elections should be different. Students are free to cast their ballots online, today and tomorrow, at uvote.temple.edu. Polling locations on every Temple campus, a list of answers to frequently asked questions and platforms for the two slates vying for executive office are also accessible.

The site even offers a voting demo.

Read up on the candidates at the official Web site, or access The Temple News’ archives at www.temple-news.com to read our coverage of the debates.

If you’re reading this issue, there’s additional coverage on our front page about current TSG operations.

Then there’s only one thing left to do: vote.