No Excuses: Get to the Polls, Vote!
By Aidan Doherty
Editor-in-Chief

Earlier this October citizens of the nation of India came out to cast their votes in what is being called the world's largest free election. Close to 370 million Indians came to the polls, despite the serious threat of factional violence in the northeastern provinces of Manipur, Assam and Tripura. Almost a hundred people have died in election related violence, instigated by supporters of rival parties and by regional separatists. Imagine. On the other side of the world, people are risking a violent and, in all likelihood, very painful death, just to exercise their democratic right to vote. Now here we are in the bastion of democracy itself, and our election turnout has been miserably low for years, especially among people between the ages of 18 and 22. No Natural Law party zealots waiting in an angry mob at the voting booth and howling for the blood of Democrats, no California separatist militants threatening to kill voters, and yet our voter turnout is an embarassment to the free world. For the love of all that's holy, they even moved the local polling station to the SMITH CAMPUS CENTER! Walk the few hundred yards between the mailroom and the voting booth, and make our democracy work.In many ways the history of the century past was a story of disenfranchised people fighting for the right to choose their own leaders through the vote. This coming Tuesday, November 5, remember their sacrifices and get on out there.