No one makes voting in elections easy for CMU students
Letter to the editor
TO THE EDITOR:
For years there has been a concerted effort to place obstacles between students and their right to vote.
The Isabella County Transportation commission, I-Ride, had provided free rides to the polls since Jimmy Carter was president, until the last Federal election in 2012, when at the behest of Republican County Commissioner Roger Trudell, they were cancelled because they encouraged the poor, seniors and students to vote. He may have been right because he ended up winning by one vote. A couple of years ago, then State Senator Mike Rodgers (Rep) sponsored a law that required the address on your driver’s license to match the one on your voter’s registration. Prior to that law, you could be registered to vote in your college town but continue to have the state send anything related to your driver's license to your parents' home. Passage of the law resulted in a reduction in the number of students registered in college towns. His law certainly benefited him. He then ran for Congress in a district that included Michigan State University and, with 297,609 votes cast, won by only 111 votes.No one is making it easy for students to vote. CMU is the only college town in Michigan with a major university where students do not have the convenience of a polling place on campus. Students used to be able to vote in city elections at Moore Hall. Now the closest polling location for students living on campus is Vowles Elementary School.The other concentration of students is in Union Township, which donuts the city. Union Township has a large number of apartment complexes whose residents comprise a majority of students. Despite that the majority of the Township's population lives around Broomfield, all of the polling places are near Pickard. Students east of Mission St. vote at obscure Jameson Hall, north of Pickard. Ironically, the precinct most dominated by students, with 46 percent of the registered voters, has the only polling place not actually in its precinct. It was recently relocated. While anywhere on campus would have been closer, it was instead moved to the Commission of Aging, which is a bit further away. Union Township Supervisor Russ Alwood (Rep) made it clear when he said in a January 2013 Central Michigan Life article, "A lot of the time, a university student will simply vote across party lines. They're not aware of their local area. They're not aware of the issues. They're not aware of who is running. I question whether university students should be allowed to vote locally." (CM Life 1/3/13, in an article about him winning election after his name was pulled from a hat, because the vote had ended in a tie.)The University should let the city and township know that they will encourage participation in our government and this community and make space available for student-citizens to vote.
There is only one way to prove that students will not allow their voices to be suppressed by political chicanery, and that is to register and vote.
Matt Mertz, senior, Mount Pleasant
