politicalpartypoop.com

A lot of notice has been taken of the poll of NYU students which showed that they’d be willing to sell their vote for varying amounts.

Only 20 percent said they’d exchange their vote for an iPod touch.But 66 percent said they’d forfeit their vote for a free ride to NYU. And half said they’d give up the right to vote forever for $1 million.

But they also overwhelmingly lauded the importance of voting.

Ninety percent of the students who said they’d give up their vote for the money also said they consider voting “very important” or “somewhat important”; only 10 percent said it was “not important.”

Also, 70.5 percent said they believe that one vote can make a difference — including 70 percent of the students who said they’d give up their vote for free tuition.

While, on one hand, it’s distressing to think of people being willing to sell what so many fought and even died to gain, it’s also a sign of either their cynicism or contentment with the system. It isn’t irrational for someone to believe that their individual vote doesn’t make a difference. After all, we haven’t had Florida recounts very often in our electoral history. And some could say that an individual vote in New York wouldn’t count very much. The state is so overwhelmingly Democratic that the Democrats don’t need any one vote and the Republicans won’t be able to make good use of it. However, New York just said good bye to a nominal Republican governor. And New York City famously elected a Republican mayor. So don’t be so sure that the state will stay as thoroughly blue in the future as it is now. However, right now, the students probably are right to doubt the importance of their own vote.

Read the rest on the blog Betsy’s Page

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 8:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized.
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