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"The Sticker Situation"

November 17, 2006

Dani's election bulletin board in McKean

I wanted a sticker. It was a self-righteous, excessively trivial feeling, but I wanted a sticker. The sticker was more than just a delightfully childish indulgence; the sticker was a status symbol. The sticker said, “I went out and did something,” summed up in two powerful little words: “I VOTED.”
I deserved a sticker, because I did vote. But I voted by absentee ballot, which somehow denies the engaged citizen her right to a sticker. I suppose it’s too much to ask the supervisor of elections to mail me a sticker once I’ve sent in my ballot. Aside from the tremendous waste of postage if every absentee voter were sent a sticker, I’m sure supervisors of elections have more important things to worry about. Things like elections.

This could be a long rant about why absentee voters deserve stickers just as much as—or more than—those who go to the poles on election day, but that’s not the point of this essay. Today I treat you all to a treatise on civic duty, and how Rollins can help you fulfill it.

My team for the Patriot Act debate

The Rollins campus is an ideal place to become an engaged citizen. For one thing, there are tremendous amounts of information available free to the student body. Every weekday, copies of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and I believe The Orlando Sentinel are placed in stands around campus for anyone who wishes to grab one. Lecturers give presentations on illegal immigration, the war in Iraq, and other hot-button issues. The newly-formed Philosophy/Debate Club (which I recently joined) provides a forum for students and faculty to hear the various sides of complex issues. On Election Day we debated the Patriot Act with Amnesty International. (My first debate—very exciting.) There is an abundance of information available here for those who wish to avail themselves of it.

Both the faculty and various student groups try to encourage students to vote. Back in early October, one of the political clubs had members available during lunch hour to help students register to vote and sign up for absentee ballots. In the week preceding the elections, several of my professors urged their classes to vote. “I don’t care who you vote for,” one professor asserted. “Just go out and vote.” Dani even put up a bulletin board in McKean to help residents get the civic wheels turning in their minds.

Shannon's personal collection of newspapers (it's been taller, believe me)

None of this means it’s easy to be an engaged citizen. For example, I read the news for several of my classes, but most of it is international news, which means I know more about what’s going on in North Korea than I do about the political races in my own state. I agonized over my ballot, torn between the feeling that I was too ignorant to be an informed vote and a deep sense of responsibility to participate in the democratic process. Eventually I came to the realization that I just had to do the best I could with the information I had managed to gather; if I made a “wrong” decision, I would do better next time. For me, the most important thing was the act of voting, and I’m proud to have participated in my very first election.

Being a citizen in a democracy isn’t easy; in fact, I think democracy is the hardest form of government to make work. “Liberty means responsibility,” George Bernard Shaw once said. “That is why most men dread it.”

Fortunately, the Rollins community is designed to encourage students to become engaged citizens of both the United States and the world. Thanks to this, we need not dread our responsibility; we just have to take it seriously.
Or, if you can’t take it seriously, remember the sticker. If that can’t motivate you to vote, nothing will.

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