Voting season in Florida is right around the corner, with the Presidential Preference Primary election being held on March 17, Primary on Aug. 18 and the General Election on Nov. 3, according to the Florida Division of Elections. In an effort to get more college students registered and involved in the voting process, Engage Miami, a non-partisan and non-profit organization, will be coming to Broward County and working with NSU clubs and organizations to educate college students on the importance of their vote. The plan is for Engage Miami to come to NSU sometime in early March, hopefully after spring break to provide details and final paperwork for the clubs that will be tabling at the event. The locations for these registration tables will be in the Don Taft University Center as well as the HPD building.
Engage Miami’s mission to educate citizens of South Florida about the significance of their vote, and to “cultivate a generation of thoughtful citizens who will work to make their community vibrant and participatory, with local government and residents in harmony,” according to the organization’s website.
According to the New York Times, 57 percent of all Americans were in agreement that “politics and elections are controlled by people with money and by big corporations.” This is a stigma with voters, leading them to believe that their vote is almost insignificant, and doesn’t really count for much. Take the general election of 2016, for example — 138 million Americans voted, and while this may sound like a lot, this only makes up 58.1% of the eligible voting population. The number of active voters among millennials in Florida is questionable to say the least, with only about 30% of the segment voting in the 2018 election. According to Charles Zelden, a professor in the Department of History and Political Science at NSU, if this number was closer to 45%, it could swing an entire election.
Regardless of if your candidate wins, voting is important because the issues that we vote for as citizens are taken into account in the next election;
According to Zelden, the point of voting is to show candidates “that you are interested in their policies, you’re willing to vote and the policies you vote for can be reflected by the winner of the election, as their job is to try and win again.”
You are eligible to register to vote so long as you submit your voter registration 29 days before an election. This upcoming registration drive with Engage Miami will get voters registered for the general election in November. Those aged 60 and above voted in the highest percentage of all eligible voters in 2016, at 70%. According to the Washington Post, only about half the number of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 29 voted in 2016. As college students, we need to be better than this. This registration drive will give us the opportunity to do just that.
Photo: A. Bolin
