City’s student leaders talk election turnout

Last night’s Pittsburgh Student Government Council meeting quickly took on a bit of an… Last night’s Pittsburgh Student Government Council meeting quickly took on a bit of an apocalyptic flavor when the conversation turned to student-voter turnout.

Shawn Carter, who serves as chief of staff for City Councilman Ricky Burgess, spoke for about half an hour during the PSGC’s regular monthly meeting, which brought together student leaders from more than 10 local colleges and universities.

Carter stressed the importance of student civic engagement, especially at the level of city and state government, warning that if students don’t start casting more votes, they will not be able to impact lawmakers’ decisions.

“Gov. Tom Corbett won his office by a margin that was about 100,000 votes less than the total number of college students currently living in Pennsylvania, then he went on to cut a billion dollars in funding from those students,” he said. “There’s something not quite right about that picture.”

“Politicians only listen to voters,” he said. “And students aren’t typically voters.”

Carter said that despite students’ potentially great impact on the Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh political processes, their general disinterest on Election Day has left them vulnerable to funding cuts and other harmful legislation.

He cited last year’s Fair Share Tax on alcoholic drinks and the ongoing efforts by state Republicans — led by Corbett — to cut almost a billion dollars in education funding as examples of the negative impact of student voter apathy.

Pitt’s Student Government Board President Molly Stieber, who serves as the University’s representative on the Council, shared similar feelings about student voting numbers.

“We’ve had a lot of success in the past few years getting voter turnout up from the single digits to something like 20 percent in last year’s midterms,” Stieber said. “Twenty percent is good, but it’s nowhere near the numbers we need if we want students to have the kind of voice they deserve in the political process.”

Carter’s assessment is an accurate one. Student voter turnout in Oakland typically falls in well under 20 percent during nonpresidential election years, and Corbett, a Republican who campaigned on fiscal conservatism and a no-new-tax pledge, didn’t depend on the student vote in his election victory in November.

In that election, 66 percent of those who voted on campus opted for Corbett’s Democratic opponent, Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato, who received 478 of the 717 votes.

Those numbers have led community leaders like Carter to question whether students are living up to their political potential.

“It’s not uncommon for a City Council or a state House race to be decided by less than a few thousand or a few hundred votes,” Carter said. “It doesn’t matter what kind of protesting goes on on college campuses or on in Harrisburg when no one shows up at the polls in May and November,” Carter said.

Fixing the problem of student voter apathy is at the heart of the PSGC’s mission, said council president Nila Devanath, who also served this year as the president of Pitt’s Graduate and Professional Student Assembly.

She said the Council is planning a number of get-out-the-vote initiatives for this May’s primary elections, as well as the general elections to be held in November, when Pittsburghers will cast votes in a number of city and county elections.