Editorial: Midterms on Midterms

Midterm elections fall at a particularly bad time during our semester. Early November means that papers are piling up, midterm exams are in full swing, the sun sets earlier and earlier, and the list of things to do only seems to grow. Somewhere in that list, perhaps beneath “finish reading” but above “do laundry,” is another task: vote.

We get it. It’s hard.

If it is any consolation, Amherst students have apparently been putting off voting for at least 54 years. On Sept. 21, 1972, The Student reported that more than 2,000 local college students had registered to vote in Amherst ahead of the November election, but only 40 of those students were from Amherst College. Over a half century later, we are once again using these pages to remind Amherst students to vote, suggesting that some campus traditions last longer than others.

There are plenty of reasons voting can fall to the bottom of an Amherst student’s to-do list. For many of us, voting does not mean walking down the street together to the same polling place. We are registered in California, Texas, Michigan, New York state, Massachusetts, and everywhere in between. Some of us have to request ballots, either through online or mailed applications, and research the deadlines and contents of our ballots. International students, meanwhile, cannot vote in U.S. elections at all.

Beyond the constraint of physical location, we are also just busy. An hour spent thinking about an election is an hour that could have been spent working on your upcoming paper. Your preferred candidate might still lose, despite the time you invested in an informed vote. If your home state or district reliably votes one way, participating can feel particularly pointless. An electoral result may seem predetermined, while your problem set’s solution is definitively not.

But this feeling of powerlessness can become self-defeating. Young people are constantly told, and constantly tell each other, that we are supposed to change the political landscape. It is difficult to make that claim convincing if we treat participation as something to get around to once everything more pressing is finished. There will always be another paper, another exam, another meeting, another reason that this particular election seems less consequential than the next one.

That does not mean Amherst students do not care about politics. In fact, the opposite seems true on this campus. Students have had plenty to say about the places and institutions immediately around us. Changes to campus life have provoked debate, criticism, organizing, and a steady stream of Amherst-focused opinions, many of which we have voiced through our weekly publications.

Politics does not have to begin in Washington, and caring primarily about what happens in your immediate community is hardly a democratic failure. At a small college, we know the people we disagree with. We encounter them in class, at dinner, in clubs, and sometimes in the pages of this newspaper. This proximity gives us an unusual opportunity to treat politics as a conversation. But it is equally important to carry these conversations to the voting booth, where legislative change actually happens.

Voting is a small act. You fill out some bubbles. You put it in an envelope. You might look up a candidate whose name you have never heard of before. You discover, to your horror, that you were supposed to request something two weeks ago. None of it carries the emotional grandeur we tend to attach to “political engagement.”

That is precisely the point. You do not have to feel politically energized to vote. You do not have to believe your ballot will single-handedly determine the future of American democracy, because perhaps it won’t. You just have to do the slightly annoying administrative work of participating. Your ballot, with the collective other, does in fact determine the future of American democracy, regardless of where you live.

And if you have been meaning to complete your ballot, we urge you to do so now. Not after your essay, and not after you miraculously attain an inbox with zero emails in it. Now.

Voting from college can mean remembering to request a mail-in ballot, remembering that you accidentally sent it home instead of Amherst, texting someone at home to ask whether it arrived, figuring out how to get it sent to Amherst, researching a ballot full of races from a place you have not lived in since August, and then remembering to actually mail the thing back. Worse, the rules are not uniform: States have different requirements for when and how to request and return mail-in ballots. So if your ballot has been sitting on your desk, in the mailroom, or, worse, at your parents’ house, this is your reminder to deal with it. Look up your state’s rules today or give your county’s voting office a quick call, and mail your ballot early enough for it to make it home — just bring it to the post office on the first floor of the Ford Student Center between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays. Simply ask for someone at the package window, and they will help you out.

We, as your campus news outlet, also want to hear more of what students actually think about this election, and not only from those already involved in political organizations or those who regularly voice their political opinions. If you care deeply about a race, tell us why. If your feelings about voting in your home state are complicated, talk about why. Even if you are frustrated, hopeful, conflicted, or unconvinced, those perspectives belong in Amherst’s political conversation too.

You do not have to make politics your entire life to participate in it. But you do have to participate.

Your other midterms will still be waiting for you after you submit your ballot. 

Unsigned editorials represent the views of the majority of the Editorial Board (assenting: 8; dissenting: 0; abstaining: 1)