In 2008, I worked on the Barack Obama Campaign in my hometown Sarasota, Florida. I dove into the sea of red, determined to make my county blue that election. I was 16 at the time, and working on the campaign motivated me to encourage my peers to challenge their parents’ political stances. I wanted them to be educated before being of legal voting age. That way they would maybe get interested in politics, which would lead them to register.

My plan backfired. Instead they all became McCain fans. When I asked why they favored the Republican Candidate, they gave me no answers, but turned their heads and kept peeling the paper off the backs of their McCain/Palin bumper stickers. I was disappointed, but excited just to be involved in the election. Although I had no power over my peers’ political opinions, I was still part of a campaign that helped register one million people to vote in the state of Florida.

Two-thousand and eight was an incredible year for young voters, especially college students. There were 19 million more young voters between the ages of 18 and 30 that voted in the 2008 election than the 2004 election. And 70 percent of them were in college (66 percent of them voted for Obama).

With this election around the corner, I find myself wondering if all that enthusiasm was just a phase.

A poll taken by the Campus Vote Project, a campaign  to help college students with the voting process by working with local election officials, showed that in 2010 a quarter of college students did not register to vote when they turned 18. According to a CNN poll, two thirds of voters under the age of 30 that voted in the 2008 election voted for President Obama, but now it is predicted that less than half of these people will vote at all this November.

Being in New York, a wonderful blue state, I decided last week during the Republican National Convention (big surprise that it was in Tampa, Florida) to talk to my peers about politics again. I spent a couple of awkward hours in the Lang Café asking students if they were voting this election and what issues stood out to them. Less than half of the students to whom I spoke were registered. Some said they were going to register soon. Some said they weren’t going to vote, because they didn’t like Senator Mitt Romney or President Barack Obama. Some said they weren’t going to vote, because they truly don’t think their vote counts. 

I was particularly struck by the last person I spoke to. This student reminded me of my frustrations when  I was a 16-year-old democrat in a republican state, going to a high school where students put confederate flags on the back of their pickup trucks. She reminded me of all of the frustrations I have with my generation. As I approached her she already seemed uncomfortable, and it was not because of the long-sleeve, floor-length dress she was sporting on this warm day, or the fact that she was caught reading Sylvia Plath. I introduced myself and asked her if she was a registered voter. She said no. I asked if she considered becoming one so that she could participate in the upcoming election. Her response was, and I quote, “Voting isn’t chic anymore.” I looked up from my notebook and tried to reassure myself that this was a joke, but she was serious.

Could the fate of our country be determined by the same set of standards that determines whether leather jackets are in this fall?

Wasn’t Madonna hip when she covered herself, barely, with a flag and threatened to spank us if we didn’t register? Didn’t Paris Hilton make us all own a “Vote or Die!” shirt because she did? Oh wait, neither of them were registered voters. Maybe the student in the Lang Café reading Sylvia Plath was right.

“The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Surely the 15th amendment should be beyond trends.

This election is going decide our country’s future. It is going to decide our generation’s future, and each candidate has a drastically different future in store for us.  Whether you think your vote doesn’t count, you don’t like either candidate or you don’t think it’s hip to vote, I have a suggestion for you. Maybe you should call up Sallie Mae and see how much money you owe them. Or if you are that rare student that doesn’t have any loans, I wish you luck getting a job after college.