The other day, I was asked for the sixth time if I was registered to vote.
I’ve been grilled by volunteers at the table at Sproul Plaza, volunteers under Sather Gate, volunteers in front of Dwinelle and Wheeler Halls, volunteers attending my Undergraduate Political Science Association meeting and, alas, still more volunteers at Sather Gate.
The campuswide voter registration campaign is managed by the ASUC Vote Coalition and aims to register 12,000 voters ahead of the Oct. 22 registration deadline. This year’s prolific effort can be seen everywhere from Sproul to the recent Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros concert at the Greek Theatre, pestering formerly innocent young college students into entering the realm of dirty tricks, backstabbing and broken promises that is American politics.
To all the eager — even perky — volunteers whom I gently but firmly reassured of my registration status, I understand that college-age voters are typically underrepresented at the ballot box year after year. But I think UC Berkeley students get it by now. We should vote. Message received.
All this hubbub and excitement begs some meaningful contemplation about how Americans aim to address the political issues of their day. But more voters is not the answer to our problems.
According to a 2006 study by the McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum, more than half of Americans can name two or more characters in the cartoon sitcom “The Simpsons,” but only one in four can name more than one of their First Amendment rights. In a 2011 Newsweek poll, 38 percent of 1,000 Americans failed the official U.S. citizenship test.
Some students might doubt that UC Berkeley students are uninformed. This registration effort is different, they might argue, because it’s recruiting America’s best and brightest potential voters from the world’s greatest public university. But consider this: A 2011 Cornell University study found that a majority of Americans who received federal student loans responded negatively when asked if they had ever used a government social program.
I’d suggest many students at UC Berkeley stand guilty as charged. Like everyone else, Berkeley students watch “The Simpsons,” fall asleep in political science class and take government loans without really considering where the money comes from.
Let’s stop fooling ourselves. More voters isn’t necessarily better for UC Berkeley or the nation. When the Founding Fathers began this whole shebang, they didn’t even entertain the idea that everyone would or should vote. The very existence of the Electoral College demonstrates that the Framers didn’t trust (or even feared) the will of the common people. They made sure blacks and women couldn’t vote — something that’s unsupportable today but was accepted pretty much without a second thought 230 years ago. This isn’t to say that discrimination in politics is in any way justifiable — just that American democracy was never designed for participation on this scale.
If you can’t name all your First Amendment rights, or if you can’t tell your friends what political platforms the candidates are running on, or if you don’t actually care what the result of this election is — do me and the founding daddies a solid and don’t vote. Ignore the happy registration volunteers at Sather Gate.
Watching “The Simpsons” is great. Just don’t expect the country to elect Bart to Congress.
Image source: H2Woah! via Creative Commons
Contact Connor Grubaugh at [email protected]
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