Our View

Situation:

The Student Action Team is leading a voter registration campaign.Stance:

Students should take advantage of the chances to get registered and then vote.

Vote or die.

Rock the vote.

However ridiculous the slogan is for the 2008 election, Eastern students need to register and vote.

But first they need to register and that will vary based on where you live, and whether you are voting in the city of Charleston or taking an absentee ballot as part of your hometown.

Eastern’s Student Action Team on campus is going to promote voter registration by hosting Rock the Vote from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sept. 17 in the library quad. Another option is to attend a regular voter registration drive on Oct. 6 sponsored by the Office of Minority Affairs.

Last year more than 100 Eastern students registered to vote at this event. There should be no excuse why students would not take advantage of these events. And don’t just register for the election; when the time comes, actually cast a ballot.

In some countries citizens can’t even vote.

Even in this country, women were not allowed to vote until the 1920s. Minorities weren’t always allowed to vote either. At a certain point, only white male Europeans with farmland were allowed to vote.

Things have changed and now all citizens above the age of 18 have a right to vote.

Some students will vote at the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union or the Newman Center depending on their district.

Voters on campus and in Charleston have multiple places to register.

They consist of three precincts: 15, 16 and 17. Precincts 16 and 17 represent the majority of campus will vote in the Bridge Lounge of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. Lincoln, Douglas and Stevenson Hall’s residents, which are part of precinct 15, can vote at the Newman Catholic Center, 500 Roosevelt Ave.

If you are not voting in Charleston, you have to contact the county clerk in the county you live in and request an absentee ballot. The time period to vote that way is from Sept. 25 to Oct. 14.

Voter turnout from 1972 to 2004 for 18- to 24 year-olds has declined 17 percent in Illinois, while nationally it has dropped 5 percent, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

Come Nov. 4, you’ll be watching CNN or FOX News, and while the polls increase for one candidate or the other, make sure you did your part by having voted.

If not, you’ll wonder whether or not your vote could have made a difference.