A student perspective on student voting
I am a senior at Radford University, and while I was home this Thanksgiving break, I heard family and friends discussing the recent election of Scott Garrett to the House of Delegates.
The conversation mostly revolved around the large number of Liberty University students who were bused to the polls by the school. It is very important in a situation like this to do our best to put whatever prior emotions we feel about Liberty aside and look only at the facts. It is a good thing for students to vote, and I don’t think there is anything wrong with the university assisting them with transportation. This remains true even though Liberty has only a one-party system on campus.
The problem lies in Liberty students’ effect on local politics. This is my fourth year at Radford, and I know how a college student experiences the surrounding community. The stores I shop at, restaurants I eat at and parks I relax in all lie within around a five-mile radius of the campus.
My knowledge of the Radford community is limited to Radford University and the businesses that exist to provide for its students. If I voted in local elections here, I would only have the interests of Radford University and the immediate vicinity in mind.
I feel that the majority of Liberty students probably have a similar interaction with the Lynchburg community. Liberty students are rarely seen shopping downtown or at the Plaza; they generally stay in the Wards Road and Candlers Mountain area.
Then, after they graduate, they move elsewhere, and the delegates they elect still effect the community and residents of Lynchburg.
Large amounts of this kind of voting could cripple areas in Lynchburg that drastically need money, Wards Road not included. Incomplete knowledge and experience leads to uneducated votes which could lead to trouble for Lynchburg outside Liberty University’s epicenter.
WILL SMITH
Monroe
Enough already
Please, please stop with the stories and/or photos of Barbie and Ken Light, a.k.a. White House party crashers Tareq and Michaele Salahi.
Would the media be this interested in Bill the electrician and his charming but rather plain wife Mabel?
I for one am sick and tired of this self-promoting couple and their shenanigans.
Obviously they did all this for the publicity, and the media gave them what they wanted. Their 15 minutes of fame expired long ago. I do hope that their bad behavior is not going to be rewarded by having them appear on news shows and possibly The “Housewives” series, whatever that is.
Bill and Mabel, however, would probably be in jail now.
LYA HALE
Lynchburg
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