PERSPECTIVE: The real curse of presidential elections: student apathy

Four years ago, when I was a sophomore at Boston University, the United States was embroiled in perhaps the most contentious electoral controversy in the nation's history. After more than 200 years of well-executed elections and decisive presidential victories, we were presented for the first time with a challenge to our faith in the American voting process.

For the first time, cracks in the system were exposed and we were shown that the process doesn't always work the way it's intended. We learned a harsh lesson in the politics of the Electoral College, the complexity of butterfly ballots and hanging chads and the necessity of our participation on Election Day.

As young people, many of us had become complacent and not voted in that pivotal campaign, believing that the 2000 election, like all those before it, would function properly even without contributing our vote. In hindsight, it was wishful thinking.

Partly as the result of our absence at the polls, the election was one of the closest ever, and the United States was without a president-elect for an entire month, while recounts and lawsuits collided with bitter partisan politics up and down the East Coast. For the first time in a century, we were shown that it is possible for the winner of the popular vote to actually lose the race for the White House.

Those of us at BU and around the nation blamed Ralph Nader for siphoning off liberal votes in swing states, Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris for squelching the black vote in Florida and the Supreme Court for handing George W. Bush the 42nd presidency.

But young people are also partly responsible for the 2000 election imbroglio. Since so few of us made it to our polling place on Election Day, we failed to make our potentially powerful voice heard. It is only today that we realize how much a few individual votes can mean for the outcome of an election and the fate of a nation.

The United States boasts one of the lowest voter participation rates of any democratic nation - just 51 percent of registered voters turned out for the 2000 election, while among 18 to 24 year olds, the participation rate was a paltry 42 percent. Our detachment from the political process in this country is an embarrassment and a real shame.

In many corners of the world, properly functioning elections are never assured. In nations where free elections still offer the hope of an idealized and democratic future, no one takes their right to vote for granted to the extent we do, and voter turnout in these places is astronomical.

Perhaps you think you have no reason to vote. That's understandable. More than most people, we as young people are cynical and skeptical of the political process. We are detached from life on Capitol Hill and suspicious of its rhetoric-filled movers and shakers, most of whom tend to be rich, white and graying men from states those of us in Boston prefer to avoid.

By neglecting to vote and rejecting participation in a process that is seen as marginalizing young people, newly eligible voters often mistakenly think they are making a political statement. The real signal we send to Washington is that we are ignorant to the sway we young voters can have.

The truth is we have a limited voice in government because we simply don't participate in the electoral process. We can change that this year, if only today's students learn from the mistakes and missteps of the unprecedented 2000 contest and its fallout by heading to the polls in droves on Nov. 2.

Sebastian White transferred from Boston University in 2000.