In the 2004 and 2006 elections, provisional ballots, as established by the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA), were given to voters who had failed to register, were attempting to vote at an incorrect polling place or had been removed from the rolls entirely. However, these ballots were rarely included in the final electoral count due to the fact that the difficulties in their validation make it far more common for them to be simply removed from the final tally. According to the secretary of state, the 2004 elections alone saw more than 4,000 Missouri provisional ballots discarded without being included in results.

In essence, provisional ballots allow would-be voters to go home thinking they have done their civic duty when they have done nothing more than allowed an election official to avoid a conflict. Thankfully, however, there are ways these problems can be corrected.

First, provisional ballots need to be eligible at any polling place. Often, these ballots are initially given out as a result of confusion regarding where a vote should be cast in the first place. It is foolish, then, that this same confusion could prevent the effective implementation of a measure originally intended to act as a safety net.

Second, a method of confirmation more efficient than the single phone line currently in place (which is overrun with calls during election periods to the point of becoming ineffective) needs to be implemented to account for the ballots themselves. Other states facing similar HAVA constraints have developed considerably more efficient methods of delivering this information. Ohio launched a Web site where citizens can check the status of their ballots, while in Texas all provisional voters are sent a notice describing why their vote was or was not counted.

The most progressive answer to the provisional ballot issue, though, is to make them obsolete entirely. Currently, seven states allow eligible citizens to register to vote on Election Day at the polling place itself, combining all steps of the electoral process into one trip. This solution improves provisional balloting in two ways. First, it allows voters to become eligible right up until the vote, capitalizing on the heavy campaigning in the last few weeks of an election cycle. Second, it gives a legitimate weight to the votes of citizens who would have otherwise been forced to vote provisionally due to a lack of prior registration.

Election Day registration is a reform that not only addresses issues of how votes are counted, but also confronts concerns about security and voter fraud in the current system. Unlike provisional ballots, registration can be easily tracked statewide, not only to allow citizens to register at a location more convenient than the one to which they are assigned, but to prevent them from illegally registering or voting at multiple locations in any contest.

Changing registration rules has been shown to be effective (the four states with the highest voter turnout in the 2004 election were all Election Day registration states) and cheap (implementation has historically cost no more than $250 per polling place). Although it would not solve all of the problems posed by provisional ballots or the electoral system as a whole, it would stand as a remarkably effective tool for progress.

If the right to vote guaranteed in the Missouri constitution is to be upheld, a method to ensure that the votes of all those who turn out are counted must be in place. Decisions on Election Day are made by the voices of those who show up, but unless the provisional balloting system changes, Missouri will be ensuring that some of those voices aren’t heard.

Nick Loyal graduated from Arts & Sciences in 2007. He can be reached at nloyal@gmail.com.

Buying books sucks, and I have the privilege of saying that I for one had it light (sorry pre-meds.remember the delayed gratification). But as someone who for the past six weeks worked in the back room of the basement of a campus bookstore that happens to already be inside a building that blocks out the sun, let me tell you: we’ve got it pretty good.

For the past two weeks, Jersey boys and sorority girls alike have been seen walking around campus with those characteristic white eFollett bags, carrying the bounty of their hunts and muttering the entire time about how the campus store just committed an act on them that’s listed as a Class A felony in Missouri. This time of year, the bookstore is hated to such a degree that Facebook groups about its ineptitude see a dramatic bump in membership. You’re poor, you’re getting ripped off and you have a right to be angry – but first look at who you should be getting pissed off at.

Most of this deliciousness starts during the finals of first semester, when immediately after the Gen. Chem final, several hundred kids who suddenly realize they don’t want to be doctors anymore rush to Mallinckrodt to see how much they can get for their bright green book. They don’t hear a number they like, their spirits are further dropped, and the B-school’s enrollment increases. In reality, though, buyback is a game that you have no control over. The maximum you’ll ever get for a book is half – and that’s only if your professor wasn’t lazy and ordered your book before the winter solstice. If nobody’s using the book, though, you get the publisher’s wholesale price.which is about enough to buy you a strudel. The big kick comes if the publisher released a new edition, in which case you get nothing. Publishers, you see, don’t make any money when the bookstore sells you used books, so they release new editions to screw you over.

If the author doesn’t feel like writing anything, though, they have another strategy. If you took Intro. to Psych. last semester, you didn’t get any money for your book. Not because there was a new edition, but because the publisher attached a study guide and a survey to the same book, shrink-wrapped it, and sold it as something else. The big national publishing houses pull up book prices faster than the University pulls up tuition; they are the reason that your paperback physics book costs over a $100, and the reason that you still have all nine of those tiny, unsellable books from your German Lit. class.

The campus bookstore, then, shouldn’t be the ones you blame. For their part, they try to help and reliably have everything you need, including the ISBNs that you use to grab books off of half.com. But after shipping, for most books that don’t have the word “thermodynamics” in the title, it’s as cheap (and a hell of a lot easier) to lug those books up from the basement and not worry that you’re getting an edition from the Federated States of Micronesia.

Obviously, the bookstore isn’t the only place on campus to get your books. Lock & Chain sponsors a charitable (albeit hit or miss) book sale at the beginning of every semester, and WashUBooks runs an operation that can get you books for cheap – if you don’t feel weird going through a process that vaguely resembles a drug pickup. Neither of these places, though, can give your architect friend enough cardboard and balsa wood to last him through his next critique.

So as you pick up and return the last of your books before the drop date, remember that everyone in that cavern of cubbies and shelves isn’t there to screw you over, and be nice to Marc and Nicole – they’re good people.

Nick is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences.

On my freshman floor, there were a few people who had a semblance of character that I do not possess. They wore tie-dye and talked about helping the environment and, from time to time, a tailwind could pick up the faintest hint of ganja wafting off of their clothing. They were great guys, but I shamelessly made hippie jokes on a regular basis. As a result, when housing time came around at the end of the year, I wasn’t surprised that they were pursuing an alternative housing solution rather than spending another year in the castles of the South 40.

At the time, this solution (the Washington University co-op) seemed a few steps down from sketchy. Various jokes about communal living filled the halls, and I asked my friends if they were soon to become the newest members of the Pi Omega Tau fraternity. They took our remarks in jest and moved into their apartment two blocks east of Kayak’s as the school year drew to a close.

Over the summer, while I worked at a Home Depot and most of the University’s undergraduate population spent three months trying to decide what to do with the next 75 years of their lives, the residents of the co-op worked to live independently. They planted gardens, studied in summer classes and began a massive renovation of their University-owned building on Pershing Avenue. At the beginning of June, the basement of the building looked like a place where you would find a meth lab and a moonshine still. Today it looks like the lounge at the Ritz.

This exceptional change-painted, walled and furnished all by student laborers-makes the co-op a perfect example of how committed individuals working together can really make a change for the better in the world around them.

The sad thing is that so many students at Washington University are either completely unaware of the co-op or have vast misconceptions about its purpose. I used to be one of those people, but again, I have lapses in judgment. The co-op isn’t a hippie commune, it isn’t a place to go if you love living in filth and it isn’t somewhere to go if you’re trying to avoid responsibility. Last year, residents had to go through an intense selection process that rivals that of most Greek organizations, and all those who live in the co-op greatly contribute not only to the quality of the institution but also to its spirit of community.

Over Labor Day weekend, the co-op had a grand opening to celebrate the end of the building process. At the event, University officials were impressed by the construction but seemed more excited about the fact that so many students not only knew how to use power tools but could use them to personally invest in their place of residence, a concept rarely seen on campus.

For many people who live in ResLife housing, this is the biggest problem. Whether a dorm is old or new, residents never seem to have a significant commitment to the well-being of their buildings. In all fairness, though, this can’t be blamed on residents when the buildings they inhabit will be destroyed and replaced in the next few years. The co-op’s greatest strength is that it proves that if students are motivated enough, they can improve their surroundings far better than the administration would ever be able to do it for them.

Campus improvement really is something that’s in the hands of its inhabitants. Some do it by increasing green space, some do it by waging recycling campaigns and some do it by remodeling crappy old basements. The point is that there are some who are getting a leg up on this process-and we should see this as anything but a lapse in judgment.

Dear Editor:

Over the course of my faculty career at Washington University, I have been generally encouraged by the decline in the number of students who are smokers. However, in the last few years, I have noticed that smoking seems to be becoming fashionable again on campus, a trend that I find deeply disturbing.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, smoking costs the U.S. economy over $90 billion a year (this makes it comparable to the expected economic impact of Hurricane Katrina), and it kills over 400,000 Americans every year. This is more than 100 times the number of people who died in the World Trade Center bombing! For my money, this makes Phillip Morris a much more dangerous threat to the United States than Al Qaeda. Talk about an axis of evil!

Moreover, the United States is relatively fortunate when it comes to smoking. In other countries that lack the restrictions on advertising that we have here, smoking is much more prevalent. When I have traveled to Europe and the Far East, I have been amazed to see how common smoking is in countries that lack our consumer protections. The tobacco industry cynically exploits the deeply addictive nature of nicotine to get people hooked and make them victims for life-a life that is made substantially shorter by their products. Don’t let these merchants of death make you a victim. If you don’t smoke, don’t start. Don’t even think about it. If you do smoke, stop-right now. If you have friends who smoke, talk to them about quitting. Let’s eliminate this deadly scourge. Lives depend on it.

Jon Turner
Henry Edwin Sever Professor of Engineering

Having a car in college seems like a great gift during your freshman year. It brings social possibility, an adventurous spirit and, most importantly, the ability to get off campus for an hour or two after you’ve spent seven hours in a dungeon memorizing the bonding properties of nitrogen. And for these reasons, automobiles are a privilege that I wholeheartedly appreciate. However, it should be known that for the week following move-in, your precious baby (or old, beat-up Buick) will be filled with the oddest assortment of cardboard and steel that you will ever see. I’m pretty sure that UTrucking has some sort of graft agreement with Parking and Transportation Services because after carrying your third fridge half a mile from brown-permit parking to Wheeler, you will curse the dolly-filled U-Haul that pulled up right outside its door and whatever corruption allowed it to exist.

The biggest problem with a car in college, though, echoes back to the financial. Last week, immediately before the effects of Hurricane Katrina had shockwaved into Missouri, I filled up with eleven gallons at $2.69 a gallon. That was half of a tank. Gas has gone up since then, and it doesn’t show any signs of stopping. The price of oil (even in a low-cost-of-living environment like the Midwest) has gone up to so high a level that I don’t want to drive myself to Target to buy detergent. Suddenly my grand ideas of road tripping to see my friends at different schools have gone flying out of my gas tank, and even a 45-minute drive home is turning into a $25 trip.

Granted, I shouldn’t be complaining. The Red Line is still free. But the concept of a car in general now seems shackled by the weight of the fuel within it. For the first time, I wish I drove some little 55-mpg hybrid. And trust me, for someone who learned how to drive in a 1993 Ford Explorer, that’s big statement. And who knows, tuition might go up again next year just so that the half-mile drive to Schnucks won’t require federal funding.

The sad thing is that this doesn’t look like it’s just going to go away. Gas has been rising since I was fifteen and there were only two digits on the sign at the Shell station (three for premium). Congress passed an energy bill last month that didn’t address rising prices, Katrina has shut down pretty much every refinery on the Gulf Coast and my family still drives four SUVs. My dad always used to tell me about how he could only fill up his Pinto on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the ’70s, and I dare say that a situation such as that could repeat itself. Only, you know, with fewer Pintos.

Having a car in college is a major step in responsibility-both personally and financially. And it’s something that every student must weigh as to its worth. Do you want to pay that much for gas? Do you really need more than one car per suite? Do you really need to go on a beer run every day? Personally, the freedom of my big black Bradley is a ticket to escape from the stresses of the daily grind. My roommates will just have to deal with that when they pay me to drive them to sushi.

Freshman move-in day traditionally brings three things: weather that makes hundreds of East-Coast parents question Missouri’s status as a nondesert state, traffic quandaries that bring meter maids tears of joy, and, above all else, an undeniable feeling of optimism and excitement among the members of the entering class. Two days later, as upperclassmen move in, everything remains- except possibly the optimism.

In one case, a man who worked his whole life to learn sits in the town he grew up in because returning to this place for a second year is something he cannot wrap his brilliant mind around without feeling it falter.

In another case, a beautiful woman walks out of her apartment onto a campus that can give her everything she wants, only to be deathly afraid that she’s not good enough to be among the intellectual demigods she has made her fellow students out to be.

And in the third through 1,174th cases, youth on the brink of adulthood sit down in their first day of Orgo class wondering if they really want to be doctors-or if there is something else.

College, despite all of its joys, can be a place of considerable duress. Depression is common, self-destructive behavior is more rule than exception, and the collective weight of being away from home, adapting to a new way of life and planning the rest of one’s existence is enough to make anyone feel like you just can’t pull off everything that someone out there (or someone inside) is expecting you to do. Even the best four years of your life have their low points.

When I visited the University before my freshman year, one of the guys I talked to calmly informed me that for nearly every student on campus there is at least one time when they consider transferring to an institution that is less rigorous, less expensive and may actually care about organized athletics. I thought this was unusual until halfway through last March when I found myself standing in the admissions office of the University of Missouri filling out a housing request card.

Freshman year is the greatest year of your life, and those who are just starting it should not read this and think that their first six months at college will make them empty shells of their former selves. But for all the upperclassmen who may have ever felt this way, there is a reason that you’re still in 63105 reading this: You’re good enough.

Sure, that’s a little campy, but consider it my “convocation” for the year (only without a funny hat, glowsticks and free ice cream). For the Class of 2008, 1,452 matriculated out of 19,822 applicants. If you are a transfer, you did well enough in your previous work to be admitted. Everyone at this place is good-and for one reason or another, that’s why it’s so hard.

One of the best messages put forth at convocation is the notion that despite the intellectual brilliance of the people in the room, only 5 percent of the freshman class will be in the top 5 percent of the class. This is said to make sure that those phone calls home when John and Jill get Cs on their first Chem exams will be expected-but it’s the wrong message. Every student at this school can excel; we had to in order to get in. So rather than fear the hammer of the coming year, believe in what you can do. Take what is yours, earn the respect you deserve and never feel that you aren’t good enough. Granted, someone might do it better, but even the man at home, the woman in fear, and the pre-meds in Orgo weren’t the best at what they were doing. And you’ll never believe what they’ve done since.

For those of you who have been locked in a cave (or the Admissions Office) for the past fortnight, this week marked the 61st consecutive staging of that institution of insomnia we like to call Lot Week. It is a glorious time where weather patterns take the place of showers, sawdust is substituted for sustenance and the Greek community proves that it can hammer just as well as it can get hammered. Regardless of your opinion of the finances, methods or motivations of Thurtene Carnival, you have to admit that hundreds of people coming together to build basically a half-dozen small homes in a week is a pretty spectacular achievement.

There are people right now who are standing on the A.C. parking lot who are wearing the same clothes that they wore on Wednesday. They smell, they’re tired and they have splinters and sawdust in places that wood products shouldn’t be allowed to go. For the past week, these individuals have screamed so much that passing bystanders either don’t even notice or simply think that most of the junior class of Wash U has a problem controlling the volume of their voices. There has been a couch at the Francis Gate for the past week not so that the Honorary can get rest when guarding the lot, but so that the guy who dropped an I-Beam for the third time has something to take cover under when being chased by three overalls wielding Black & Deckers. The level of commitment of so many has led to a net loss of hygiene and academic performance, but the payoff has been worth so much more.

For many in the Greek Community, the biggest attraction to joining a chapter is the prospect of Brother or Sisterhood. This week, every time someone spotted a ladder, held the other side of a bolt or grabbed water for a friend hanging three feet off a scaffolding, that bond has been formed. Just as rural communities take pride in raising the walls of a barn, there is no greater method of bonding for our community than when fifty wet, tired, unshaven undergraduates hoist a wall into the air and hold it into place with an army of two by fours. It’s not just the Greeks that are taking part, though. Dozens of campus groups are setting up tables or booths to run games or sell concessions. These groups might not watch the sun rise while putting on a roof, but they prove that Thurtene is a time when all of Washington University can come together to benefit a cause (and probably have the largest amount of purely sober fun of the entire year).

For the past week, my clothes have been soaked to the bone, my hands have gone raw from ratchets and screwdrivers, my feet ache from endless repeats of jazz squares, my voice has gone raspy from belting out my best impression of Steve Perry four times a day and there are dozens who are reading this and laughing at me for having such a light week. Thurtene is without a doubt the biggest undertaking that undergraduates at Wash U put on, so, when you come this weekend, remember that. All the things you see around you-all the buildings, all the shows,and all the random shenanigans-were planned and accomplished by your fellow students. It came at a cost of grades, sleep and bodily injury, but it was worth it. Thurtene is a celebration of community-something a story about standing in the rain could never truly express.

Dear Editor:

How many AIDS infections have been contracted through casual sex (including safe sex where the condom broke) because society says sex is just a game? How many sexual assaults have happened because the perpetrator thought, “sex is no big deal, so surely she doesn’t mean ‘no’ to a little fun?”

Trivializing sex has long-term consequences, so I hope Student Life will consider that before its Sex Week issue next year.

-Bryan Kirchoff,
University College

Last Sunday, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences held its 47th ceremony awarding achievement in music excellence. Of the 107 categories up for awards, only 11 were presented in prime time. Some might say this is because nobody cares who won for Best Country Instrumental Performance, but others think differently.

Award shows, particularly the Grammys and Oscars, are institutions that are buried so deep in nostalgia that they can’t bear true witness to the art that is happening around them. Each of these ceremonies annually lengthens their three-hour-plus broadcasts by bloating them with tributes, lifetime achievement awards and honorariums. These usually step aside for the major awards and performances of the night, but last Sunday this was not the case.

No one will ever doubt the genius or courage of Ray Charles, the man who overcame adversity to show the world how music should truly have been seen. The fact remains, though, that his untimely death and the subsequent release of his biopic should not give him precedence as an artist. On Sunday, Charles won the awards for Record and Album of the Year with a mediocre song off of a mediocre album. Had Charles not passed, his work would easily have been eclipsed by the music of Green Day or Kanye West, both of whom had a much greater effect on popular music in 2004 than Charles did.

Plus, it’s not like the man never got any recognition. Going into last Sunday’s ceremony, Charles had received twelve Grammys over a career that lasted 50 years. To put that in perspective, neither Tupac nor Biggie received a Grammy in the year following their deaths.

For one, this could be a by-product of the fall to the right that American media has taken. In a time where a Bud Light commercial that makes fun of Janet Jackson can’t be shown at the Super Bowl because of shame, it makes sense that film and music are all turning towards Charles. Here is a man who overcame adversity, they say. Never mind the fact that he was a heroin addict for a good chunk of his life: the man was blind! And anyone who made record companies and radio stations dizzy with anger towards a blind fellow has to be better than some punks singing about politics or a producer rapping about religion. Right?

This is the problem with heralding anyone following their death. No man with any sense of morals is going to insult the character of one who has already passed. As a result, the deceased’s work becomes the stuff of legend, his faults are glossed over and he’s placed in a nice video montage.

Ray Charles was a man who deserves to be remembered as a genius, but rather than continue heaping praise on him, try something else. Recognize those in the present who have the potential to be like Charles was in the past. Recognize the innovators, the risk-takers and those who throw art out whether we like it or not. These are the people from our generation who will be remembered. Until then, though, go to Mallinckrodt and look at the faces of those who watched Ray Charles play. If he could see them, I’m sure they’d be all the awards he’d ever need.

The Super Bowl is, and probably always will be, America’s defining sporting event. You could make an argument for the World Series, the NBA finals or even the Daytona 500, but do we give any of those events Roman numerals? No. The Super Bowl is a testosterone-filled giant in a sea of ants, and with the utter death of hockey and the continual disappointment of pro hoops, the event on Sunday should act as a defibrillator for a nation that is in desperate need of a distraction.

How important is the Super Bowl to America? Let’s put it this way: last year, CBS estimated that 143.6 million people watched the Panthers and Patriots in Super Bowl XXXVIII. To contrast that, 121 million people voted in the November Election. If they were smart, they’d figure out some way to combine the two. Everyone gets up at the two minute warning anyway-why not choose a new government while you pour a bowl of Doritos? Plus, in our post-Janet Jackson world, the chances of any of the young’uns catching a sight of anything more disturbing than the Eagles’ defensive line is pretty much zip.

There really will be something for everyone to look for in Jacksonville on Sunday. The sports enthusiasts will watch a battle of a high-powered offense and a brilliant defense. Those who shun athletics will watch for new commercials that cost more than most pension plans and my mom will watch simply because if she doesn’t my dad will start yelling and probably end up breaking the TV. And for those of you who can’t get enough of old guys talking about a game that has passed them by, pre-game coverage has been going straight for about a fortnight now.

The joy of the Super Bowl is that it can bring people together in ways few other things can. No matter what Boston says, there aren’t 143.6 million Eagle and Pat fans in this country. People watch to have a good time, people watch to get closer to their friends and people watch so that they can shamelessly throw back beers at 3:00 p.m. In an age when your floor rises in civil war when someone suggests going to Center Court for dinner, it’s good to know that on Sunday the level of opposition to changing the channel will be so high that you’ll be able to go half a day without touching a remote.

The final match of the FIFA World Cup is consistently the most watched sporting event in the world. But I highly doubt that a big chunk of that number comes from folks in the lower 48. On Sunday afternoon, America will experience the 39th occurrence of its flagship athletic spectacle. Bonds will be shared, beer will be spilled and there will most likely be another stupid E-Trade commercial involving a monkey; but most importantly, there will be football. And it will be good.