Are you tired of being hassled by your Burleith neighbors? How about the University’s ineffectiveness in dealing with local political groups when it comes to expanding our campus and City Council members who routinely ignore the pressing needs of college students? If you want to do something about it, your time has come.
Election Day is Nov. 2, and we are calling on all Georgetown students-and most importantly incoming first-years -to register to vote for the upcoming election. The decision whether to register to vote in the District is a personal one, but one that we endorse. You will be spending most of your year in D.C. and around 40 percent of Georgetown’s students remain in the area after graduating.
Although neighborhood relations have markedly improved, it was not so long ago that non-student resident groups tried to impose several unfair conditions on Georgetown students. The Board of Zoning Adjustment proposed motions attempting to force students to register their cars with D.C. Metropolitan Police if they lived in Burleith, and a motion to report off-campus student violations to their parents. You can thank students that registered and voted locally, and the efforts of Campaign Georgetown, a campus organization devoted to grassroots political activity, for preventing these motions from becoming the law.
Registering to vote in D.C. not only increases the University’s and students’ influence in local political races, but also it can serve as an important reminder of what most voters around here feel like: disenfranchised.
’”Most important is for everyone to be registered to vote somewhere, but it’s also important for Georgetown students to register to vote in D.C. to effect the outcome of ANC elections and to show the rest of the community that we are participants in civil society,’” Campaign Georgetown member Eric Lashner said.
Especially if you’re a Democrat in Massachusetts or a Republican in Texas, two states that are solidly blue or red, a district vote means even more sense. Your vote won’t go further than the local City Council, national ’”shadow’” Representatives or, for that matter, a ’”Delegate’” to Congress who has no voting power in the House of Representatives, but if student participation in local politics increases then so will our and the University’s clout. Even if you make the decision to register in your home state, you can still do your part by applying pressure to your Representative and Senators to give the District the federal representation its voters deserve.
Campaign Georgetown, the College Democrats and the College Republicans will be trying to ensure that every eligible Georgetown student is registered to vote on Election Day. You should wholeheartedly welcome their assistance.
