PV to the polls

(Image from Wikimedia Commons at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desi_accuvote-tsx_vvpat.jpg)

In the spirit of the elections, the Political Science club came together with the Sociology club to figure out ways to get Prairie View A&M students to go out and vote. We had great ideas that were formulated, but the shutdown factor for them all was the event the students asked "why should I vote?”

Since this is an HBCU, many of my fellow club members decided to appeal to the students' sense of history. Unfortunately, they wound up spouting the usual "so many people died for this right" and "our ancestors fought and marched for the right to vote" spiel. Even though I agreed with them that those reasons were solid enough to make someone want to vote; however, I had to disagree that they were motivational enough to everyone.

My plan to appeal to students was simple, find the main reason they chose to attend college and make the connection to politics. When I asked many of my fellow club members why they were ultimately here in college, the answers all boiled down to more money in the future. Since money was the ultimate goal and tax money pays politicians, I compared politics to a fortune 500 company, where each student was the CEO and each politician was an employee. I said since they were going to pay the person elected regardless, they might as well have a say in who they hired. Needless to say when money was thrown into the equation, people became less averse to voting, in fact that walked to the polls as if they were Donald Trump on an episode of The Apprentice. 

 This link provides additional reasons why college students everywhere should exercise their right to vote: http://education-portal.com/articles/10_Reasons_Why_College_Students_Should_Vote.html