Editor in chief: Laura Cadiz Editorial Editors: Bret Jacobson, Laura Lucas Newsroom: (541)346-5511 Room 300, Erb Memorial Union P.O. Box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403 E-mail: ode@oregon. uoregon.edu On-line edition: www.dailyemerald.com Victims' rights, taxes, crime preven tion. These issues have an impact on our lives. Daily, weekly, yearly or once-in-a-lifetime impact. Impact on the wallet and impact on law. They mat ter. But we students don’t seem to think so. Tuesday was the deadline to vote in the 1999 special election. There were nine state-wide ballot measures and one Lane County ballot measure on which voters had their say. The state-wide measures encompassed such pivotal issues as victims’ rights and tax regulation. In no small matter, they sought to change the constitution of this state. Closer to home, Lane County’s sole ballot measure was just as significant: crime prevention and safety in our com munity. Some say we don’t care about the is sues. Some say we don’t feel connected to government. Some say we lack the social responsibility. Add all these damning characteristics to the fact that we often live in a community for only four years or so before we pass on to “real life,” and you have a negative picture of student voters. The proof is in the numbers. We stu dents on average do not vote in the same percentages as our older counterparts. In 1998’s general election, 18-34 year-olds made up only 17 percent of the total vot ers even though they make up 30 percent of all registered voters. And that’s well above voter turnout for our own ASUO special election from the same school year at 1.8 percent. What’s wrong with this pic ture? What’s more: How can we fix it? Well, some answers seem to be obvious — voter education for one — but you can’t force people to care. The ASUO Executive held a panel discussion on the ballot mea sure last week and did their annual voter registration drive, but they noticed a de cline from last year’s participation in similar events. It’s a down year for interest in elections, mostly, people think, because there are no burning issues or candidates to cause a stir. ASUO President Wylie Chen said he re alizes that students generally only vote when issues impact them directly, such as a higher education ballot measure would. Thus said, one of his office’s main goals this year is to educate students about what does impact them. This stretches from state-wide elections to our own elections for the ASUO. Voter turnout is low be cause, in theory, people vote when they think it they have a stake in the outcome. We need to convince each other that we do have a stake in the elections. We are not just little adults-in-training who will someday vote more often be cause we have children or jobs. We are adults now who share the burden of taxes, draft eli gibility, crime prevention and jury duty. These things affect us now, and we need to start caring. The crux of the problem is that if we don’t vote in large numbers, politicians and government agencies think we don’t care and don’t target us. And you know what, they’re taking advantage of that. It’s easy for politicians to dismiss our needs when we don’t give them a reason to listen. Yet, if we think politicians don’t care l^gr about us, >*2^3ggj r