Every vote counts

   “And believe it or not, when we were first married, our combined monthly student loan bills were actually higher than our mortgage. We were so young, so in love, and so in debt.”

That was a portion of First Lady Michelle Obama’s speech delivered Sept. 4 at the Democratic National Convention, a speech that moved many to tears.

With students facing an 8.3 percent unemployment rate after graduation—which only adds to the pressure of having to pay large amounts of student debt—you would think students would take this election season seriously.

But, according to a recent poll conducted by Gallup, a leading research organization, that’s not actually the case.

Turns out that only 56 percent of young adults between the ages of 18-29 have committed to voting this year. That is a 10 percent decrease from the number of young adults who turned out in 2008.

So, the point of this column is to try to convince you, the student, to care. If you already are involved politically, I’d like to extend much kudos to you. But I think you’ll agree with me when I say that a lot of UTEP students are not interested in politics, even though the next four years may be very trying on us as young adults.

Students, it really doesn’t hurt to be more informed about what’s going on around you, in fact, it can only benefit you. Our system is extremely messed up and when we don’t express ourselves through—at the very least—a vote, nothing will change.

In a society that is surrounded 24/7 by media, remaining uninformed is a choice and there’s really no excuse for it.

Please, pick up a newspaper, watch the news, listen to the radio, attend some of the political lectures on campus, it doesn’t matter what you choose to do as long as you do something. Then be at a poll on Nov. 6 to vote.

It’s true that in the state of Texas the vote is pretty much already decided (Texas almost always votes Republican), but at the same time a single vote helps our community by getting politicians to note that they should care about our city, since they’d see that El Pasoans care.

That in turn brings more money to the city.

So if you won’t vote because you don’t agree with either candidate, or you simply don’t care about politics, at least consider that your vote counts to help our city improve itself.

Do it for El Paso.

Jasmine Aguilera may be reached at prospector@utep.edu.