Kentucky is anxiously awaiting next month’s election. Then there will be one the year after, and another, and another, ad nauseam.
If you are a student, particularly one from out of state, you may feel disconnected to the ongoing campaigns, especially those which are specific to Lexington (namely County Clerk and House District 93).
That’s fine, many of you may feel as though your vote is needed back at home, wherever that may be. But many more — far too many — have little intention to vote either at home or here.
Perhaps that is because it’s exceedingly complex to secure a mail-in ballot should you not make it home on time to vote in person. Or it could be that voting altogether seems unimportant and inconsequential.
I contend, as you may expect, that your vote is exceptionally powerful. In fact, the very engine of democracy makes this educational experience possible. Without that vote, you might become alienated from your surroundings, your education and your leaders.
Our lives as students are shaped by the university administration who make many decisions about our education for us. By and large an undemocratic institution, but kept at heel by elected legislators in Frankfort.
More too, we are subjects of this city run by those we elect to run it in City Hall. Much of their time is spent wrestling with the magnanimous force that is the University of Kentucky.
UK has, by all accounts, massive political capital in Lexington and Kentucky. It is the city’s largest employer and the Commonwealth’s flagship university. It’s both a blessing to have such a powerful force at our doorstep and a fragile thing that we all should take with excessive care.
So when some express that students ought not be able to vote with their dorm address, I am reasonably concerned. It doesn’t seem to be a ubiquitous position on the right but like any muscle, if we fail to use it, it will be taken from us.
Students — yes, even those who are here for but a short time — have considerable vested interest in the goings-on of those who govern this institution. Exercising that inalienable right to vote is probably our best way to actually make meaningful, lasting change on and off campus.
So if you don’t feel extremely passionate that your vote is needed more pressingly at home (if you’re from Mississippi or Louisiana, I can see why that might be the case), I would strongly recommend you consider changing your registration to your campus address.
This November there is, of course, an extremely important gubernatorial election alongside elections for every statewide constitutional officer. In Lexington, there is a special election for County Clerk and House District 93, which covers mostly the south of town.
Again — you are allowed to register to vote using your dorm address.
Just don’t forget to change it should you change buildings next year.
Democrat or Republican, if you’re a UK student, you ought to make your voice heard. The deadline to register to vote in the upcoming election is October 10 — so time is ticking — but you can still change it after the deadline for future elections.
Make this decision with great care, but consider where you want to make change and whose representation is going to most immediately impact you.
