Last week, I attended the Rose Cafe led by Glen Altschuler on the upcoming midterm elections. It proved to be quite informative, particularly in relation to voting statistics. Even though there are more registered Democrats than Republicans, Republicans tend to have a higher turnout. This is in part due to the low turnout among young voters (who tend to be Democrats). Given that this group of potential voters incorporates most of the students at Cornell, that means that we have the potential to help change this. Vote! Tell your friends to vote! Make sure you know where your polling place is (if registered in Ithaca) or apply for an absentee ballot. Even if you are unable to vote, you can still encourage your friends to do so. Only we have the power to actually change the turnout of young voters, so if we want to increase our turnout, we must actually vote.

Another comment that Professor Altschuler made that I found interesting was on independent voters. He described them as being composed of three groups: those who always vote for Democrats, those who always vote for Republicans, and those who actually alternate which political party they vote for. From the independent voters that I have met, I have mostly found this to be true. Professor Altschuler also described independents as being the least informed group of voters. While I understand his reasoning, I do not completely agree with this statement. There are certainly independent voters who actually do research the candidates and make an informed decision. However, I think most people–whether they are independents or not–choose who they are voting for based on more superficial factors, such as whether or not they like a particular candidate’s face. While this is essentially what Professor Altschuler was saying, I think that this applies to people who are affiliated with a political party as well. The only difference is that those voters typically use “is part of my political party” as their reasoning for their voting decisions. I doubt that many of these people are actually doing research on the candidates ahead of time.