Right to vote worth about $1 million

New York University survey finds 1,500 students would forfeit vote for greenbacks

Eva Markowski, UWO Gazette (University of Western Ontario)

LONDON (CUP) — For $1 million, would you give up your right to vote?

In a survey by a New York University journalism class, about half of the 3,000 undergraduate students polled said that they would forfeit their right to vote in all American elections in exchange for $1 million.

The poll also found that 20 per cent of respondents would give up their vote in the next federal election for an IPod touch, and another 66 per cent would exchange their right to vote in the next presidential election for one year’s tuition paid at NYU.

Sixty per cent of the students who were willing to exchange their next federal vote for tuition came from upper-middle or high-income brackets.

But the study also found that 90 per cent of those willing to sell their votes believed voting was “very important” or “somewhat important.” Seventy per cent said they believe that one vote can make a difference.

Laura Stephenson, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Western Ontario, attributed the discrepancy to students’ willingness to pass the responsibility to others.

“Students think voting is important, but they know that lots of other people will be voting, too,” Stephenson said.

Stephenson also noted that voter turnout is the lowest among young voters.

“Students are the ones who turn out the least, and there is a lot of apathy, and a lot of students don’t seem to be tied in to the political process.”

Zach Churchill, national director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, said that the study doesn’t suggested that students are apolitical.

“I think there’s a misconception that . . . youth are not involved in the political process. When you look at our generation of students, it is this generation that is more heavily involved in activism, more heavily involved in volunteering. . . . We are a very politically-charged generation.”

The million-dollar offer would not be enough to garner the vote of first-year student Rob Jackman, though.

“I think it [violates] all the fundamental reasons why my grandfather came to Canada. . . . It would be disrespectful.”

Second-year student Mo Abdelmalek, meanwhile, thought the offer was appealing enough to accept.

“It sounds pretty sweet [voting is] maybe not that important if you have an incentive.”