There are many, many reasons to be depressed about last week's election. But one, in particular, stands out: not many of us voted.
According to preliminary data from the Board of Elections, turnout in Durham's precinct 5-which serves students from West and Central campuses-was the second lowest in the county, with just 18 percent of registered voters casting ballots. In precinct 2, which encompasses East Campus, the turnout was only 23 percent.
Just as surprisingly, the lowest turnout of all was in the precinct serving NCCU's campus, where only 182 of 2,028 registered voters-that's just 9 percent!-cast their ballots. For perspective, consider that Durham County's average turnout was 38.55 percent, and it went as high as 51 percent in precinct 39.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should add that these statistics do not yet include early, absentee or provisional ballots, and they don't account for students who cast ballots in their hometowns, leaving out hundreds of Duke voters. Still, the message is plenty clear: We students are not participating in Durham's political determinations.
Which begs the question: why the hell not?
We certainly weren't disenfranchised: Groups like Duke Students for an Ethical Durham successfully encouraged more than 1,000 of us to register to vote locally this fall. Add to that the fact that 1,362 East and West campus residents were already registered, and it seemed like nearly half of Duke undergraduates were poised to cast their votes Nov. 7.
And what a proud moment that would have been. In one of the most controversial-and significant-elections in Durham's recent history, a large student turnout would have signaled our commitment to this community's political process.
More than that, Election Day was a singular opportunity for us to oppose Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong's disgraceful conduct while pursuing felony indictments against three of our classmates.
So I'll ask again: What more incentive could Duke students possibly need to vote? This was our best chance yet to demand fairness and equal treatment under the law, and I just can't understand why more eligible, registered students couldn't spare 30 minutes toward these imperatives.
Of course, this problem is not unique to our campus, but rather endemic to our age group: Nationally, only 24 percent of eligible voters under age 30 cast ballots last week. And although we make up approximately 21 percent of the "voting eligible" population, we only cast 13 percent of the votes.
In this election, we now know that higher student turnout would not have been enough to overcome the nearly 6,000-vote differential between Nifong and opposing candidate Lewis Cheek.
Still, these votes would have been anything but futile: Many of these students would have joined 51 percent (the majority) of Durham voters in rejecting Nifong's outrageous behavior. They also would have gained the opportunity to choose which judges, congressmen and assorted other elected officials will govern this community.
And although our numbers were not sufficient to change the result of the Nov. 7 election, Nifong relied in part on abysmal student turnout in the May primaries to defeat opponent Freda Black by only 883 votes.
If more of us had taken the time to vote in that election, Durham would have been spared all of the controversy that has followed Mike Nifong's handling of the lacrosse case. We would have also gained an eminently qualified candidate for district attorney, one whose experience and conduct make her worthy of the office.
In other words, although there are more than 140,000 registered voters in Durham, the 11,206 of them who voted for Mike Nifong in last May's primary were enough to define the terms of the general election. If a small minority of Durham's voters is going to continue choosing our political representatives in primary elections, then it behooves Duke students to see that they are included among this minority in the future.
And yes, I acknowledge that the act of voting is inconvenient and sometimes infuriating. Last Tuesday, it was raining and it was cold, and precinct 5's facilities at the W.I. Patterson recreation center could barely accommodate the voters waiting at 5 p.m. The ballots can be confusing, and my felt-tip marker was dry.
But in the scheme of things, these just aren't valid excuses for Duke students' failure to vote; idealism and civic responsibility aside, the events of this spring have shown how important it is that we participate in choosing Durham's elected officials.
I confess that if concern for our classmates and the integrity of Durham's legal system weren't enough to get more of us to the polls last week, then I don't know what would be. What I do know is this: We should be ashamed of our historically low level of engagement in Durham elections, and we should all hope that the hard lessons of the past eight months will disabuse us of that habit in the future.
Kristin Butler is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every Friday.
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