It’s an exciting time of the semester: midterms are in full swing, Spring Break is rapidly approaching and to top it all off, it’s almost time to vote again. What’s that you say? Voting?

That’s right. Even though most students are more concerned with writing their next paper or finalizing their vacation schedule, they should not forget the DeKalb County primary elections are right around the corner.

Voting apathy among young people has been a problem in general elections for many years. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, voters from ages 18 to 24 had the lowest turnout for registration and actual voting in the 2004 presidential elections. And primary elections, because of their lack of visibility and local focus, often suffer the least amount of attention — especially from young students.

“Most students could care less about the primaries,” said senior political science major Ryan Kerchner.

Donna Dalton, a senior political science major and president of the NIU College Democrats, agrees.

“Students have the potential to have such a powerful voice,” Dalton said. “But it’s hard to make them vote because nobody can make them think a lot of current issues affect them.”

The truth is much of the controversies dividing political campaigns and circulating in Congress will impact college students. With our government dauntingly diminishing student aid availability, battling over Social Security and aggressively increasing military recruitment, students must become aware of how these issues affect them, and they need to make their voices heard before it’s too late.

“People assume most students aren’t paying attention,” Dalton said. “A lot of grants were cut this year and many issues, like privatization, are going to affect people in college. If students knew that [politicians] were going to cut Pell Grants, they’d be a lot more concerned with voting.”

Until our demographic starts to prove they care about these cutbacks, other issues will take precedent. And the best place to begin to show our concerns is in the primary elections.

“If you don’t vote for the primaries, and you don’t pay attention, you can elect a weak candidate,” Kerchner said. “A lot of politicians probably never reach out to young people and students because they don’t want the student vote and they don’t like the student voice. Students want different things, and if more young people voted you’d see a big difference in issues.”

Tuesday, March 21 registered students will be able to vote in one of the 14 DeKalb County polls, as determined by their voter registration cards. Early voting will also be available until this time at the County Clerk’s office in Sycamore, two blocks north of the DeKalb County Courthouse.

I urge everyone reading this column to take some time and review the issues surrounding the primary candidates in your district and to go out and make your voice heard.

This might not be the presidency, but because of the amount of voting power we, as students, have in DeKalb, this is a rare opportunity to give our concerns precedence and put our often-ignored concerns and demands into motion.