Bare Ballots: Why students chose not to vote

Despite one of the highest rates of voter turnout in the 2008 presidential election, almost 80 million eligible citizens still abstained from voting. This year, with a number of citizens disheartened by the political process, the candidates emphasized the importance of voting more than ever. However, as millions of people flocked to voting locations across the country, a number of Wash. U. students left their ballots unclaimed. Check out why a few of these students avoided the polling booths on Nov. 6 below:

I decided not to vote because I am undecided about who I’d vote for. So I guess my feeling was that it’s important to do something with political repercussions and I should do something with conviction and that since I don’t really have a strong opinion either way, I should let the people that do have strong opinions either way make the decisions.
-Junior Madeline Enright

I hadn’t watched any of the debates or followed anything that was going on, and I didn’t feel like I was really informed and then I was kind of planning on it and then I got kind of busy and I forgot to go get an absentee ballot for home and so it never really happened. It wasn’t really one of my top priorities.
– Junior Alisa Li

I think that just as much as every vote counts, every absent vote counts, and not voting is really the only way you can let the politicians know that you don’t like them. I believe that whether or not I vote I am going to have very little impact regardless.
-Senior Jake Knanishu

Well, I think that if I had voted for either Romney or Obama, it would have been kind of…what’s the word I’m looking for…kind of pointless in a sense that I was choosing one over the other, but I didn’t like either of them. It’s like picking the lesser of two evils.
– Junior Brandon Maddy

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