Jasmine would like to consider herself a civically responsible citizen who probably cares too much. Apathy is not something she battles with often. In high school, she voted in every election that she was allowed to participate in. The first three years of high school, she ran for three different student government positions, seduced by the promise of power. She lost all three elections, but found solace by remembering that Michael Jordan didn’t make his high school basketball team. As a Dartmouth student, she has voted in every student government election in addition to tabling for and voting in the 2012 general election.
In comparison, Emma is a terrible citizen. After a brief stint as eighth-grade honor society treasurer, she permanently resigned from the political sphere. She realized that she possesses neither the charisma nor cunning that rallying a student body behind the prospect of new vending machines requires. She does not remember if her high school had a class president and has not voted in a single Dartmouth election. Though she did vote in the presidential election, she was too lazy to drive to the polls in New Hampshire and instead filled out an absentee ballot for New York, one of the states where your vote counts least.
We can all agree that apathy is a serious demon to be reckoned with. As Maroon 5 once sang, “If you don’t know, then you can’t care.” This is the case with almost everything, including student government and student body elections. We both recognize that informing yourself about society’s issues and making an educated decision in voting is a prerequisite for becoming a real person. While it’s hard not to become disillusioned and apathetic if results aren’t tangible and the process seems ineffective, we have both decided to vote in Monday’s campus elections — if we don’t make an effort to care, why should we expect anyone else to?
