Despite the efforts of campus groups and national political campaigns, some students are choosing not to vote in this November’s election for reasons ranging from ambivalence for major candidates to fear of pushing the country in the wrong direction.
One such student is 18-year-old Mike Matve, IU freshman. Matve, who has never before voted in a general election, was a Bernie Sanders supporter who liked his ideas about lowering college tuition but was put off by his more socialist goals. Matve leans Democratic, but he could not make the shift to Hillary Clinton, though he prefers her over Donald Trump.
“I don’t feel either of the candidates will take this country in a good direction,” Matve said. “If Hillary was more trustworthy, she’d be ideal for me, but with everything she’s done it’s hard for me to side with her.”
Matve said he can’t vote for any of the candidates because of their history and rhetoric, such as Trump’s promises to build a border wall between Mexico and the United States and Clinton’s deleted emails scandal.
He said undecided voters should vote for Clinton over Trump rather than not vote at all.
“The more voters the better,” Matve said.
But although he believes others should vote, he still will not. Matve says that peer pressure and voter registration drives cannot change his mind, and that being pressured to vote is annoying.
Because young people are historically a group with low voter turnout, several organizations have focused on registering and motivating college students to vote. The IU Student Association has paired with other universities to try to register 30,000 students to vote across the Big Ten Conference schools.
“A lot of people are like, ‘Every vote counts, you should totally go and vote,’” Matve said. “That’s all I hear. If I hear it 99 times, hearing it one more time isn’t going to change anything.”
Freshman Rin McNutt said she feels she needs to be more informed about the issues and the candidates to vote, and that abstaining from voting is for the greater good.
“It’s plainly due to my own ignorance,” McNutt said.
She said she would rather not vote at all than vote and make the wrong choice in a candidate.
“I feel like the country can’t be benefited from my vote,” she said. “I, at this moment, don’t have enough knowledge of politics or economics or anything involved.”
McNutt, who also has not voted in a general election, is registered to vote in Brown County but is not affiliated with any party.
She believes the push on campus to vote is a good thing for other students who are voting, but says it can’t change her mind. McNutt avoids political media as much as possible and so far has had positive reactions from her peers.
“I’ve had several people say that they admire that I stay out of politics since I know nothing about it,” she said.
