Why Voters Vote

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Electing to Elect
By Cami Carlson

Barack Obama’s place in American history will be the first black president ever elected, voters from this the 2008 election can say they were part of this epic event. Elections are part of the American culture; they are part of Logan culture as well. Logan voters gave their thoughts about voting Tuesday at the polls.

“I vote because I care about our country, I care about our future, I live here. I also have six grandchildren so I have a stake invested,” said Renee Nolan, 53 a Homemaker, with a PhD in research in evaluation from the College of Education from Utah State University.

Nolan feels so passionately about elections that she sacrifices her free time to volunteer to help other voters get in to vote. She also finds it a great teaching opportunity for her grandchildren. She had her four-year-old grandchild brought to the church where the polls were set up in Logan, so that they could watch and get a feel for what voting is all about. Nolan said it is best to teach them young about the importance of casting their vote.

Young adult voter Megan Miller, 21 Family, consumer sciences and human development major said that she knows she is supposed to vote, “I was taught that your vote matters no matter what. I was taught to practice your rights.”

Some of the polled voters felt that those who do not make it out to vote don’t realize even if they are not politically minded they still opinions about major issues that they could be voting about.

Kim Richins, 48 is employed by the State of Utah said that those who don’t vote don’t know enough about candidates or they think their vote won’t matter. Richins said his favorite thing about voting is being able to have personal say-so in elections. He said in his opinion, “If you don’t vote, you don’t have the right to complain.”

Motivation for people to take part in elections varies. Miller said she votes because she shares stronger beliefs in one of the political parties and strongly disagrees with the other party. She said, “You have to get your party in there.”

21-year-old Greg Larsen student of computer science said, “Thousands of young men died so that we could vote, it would be an insult to our ancestors if we didn’t vote. Every citizen of the United State has the duty to vote.”

I feel if there was more hype about elections and voting there would be more people voting said Landon Capult, 21. Capult said USU did a pretty good, but the elections could be more hyped and there could be more pressure on people to get to cast their votes.

Voters interviewed at the polls said there are some things that they would change about elections.

Nolan expressed concern that in Utah we are only required to show our identification the first time we vote. She said it just leaves the door open to fraud. “It’s the law in other states just not here,” said Nolan.

Richins said his least favorite thing about the elections are the process of campaigning and the expenditures that candidates make, for example McCain and Obama spent a combined $8 billion dollars, “Why people spend that kind of money to make $200,000 a year is beyond me.”

A change desired by Larsen was an unbiased objective source for voters to go to see what the issues were, and which candidates supported what. “Also I would like to see more of an emphasis on Senate or state elections, because there are a lot of people who didn’t even know that Utah was electing a new governor, which is a big deal for Utahans.”