I wholeheartedly agree with Adam Kotlarczyk in that a good number of Americans were basing their opinions on misinformation and did not do their research. There are so many programs out there that emphasize the importance of doing your part on Election Day, but what nobody is talking about is that along with that vote comes a certain responsibility to find the facts to the best of your ability before casting your ballot. This includes a little more effort than watching “Fahrenheit 9/11” or listening to Rush Limbaugh.

Although Kotlarczyk did disperse responsibility to both Bush and Kerry supporters, he attributed most of the blame to those who supported the president, even though I believe there was just as much misconception coming from the other side. In the interest of getting the facts out, I wanted to bring to the attention some of the common misconceptions I have seen in voters who did not support the president (including a few writers for this newspaper).

Many think that Dick Cheney is receiving payment from Haliburton for letting them work in Iraq. In truth, the only payment he received was money that the company owed him for work he did before he even started campaigning for vice president. He is no longer tied to Haliburton in any way and hasn’t been since before the 2000 election, and the money he received was before the war in Iraq even began. Many think that George W. Bush has cut “millions” from education, but the amount of money spent on education has actually increased by 2 percent. Many thought Bush and the Republicans were in support of a draft. In fact, when the draft was voted on, only two people voted to support it, and both were Democrats. A Democrat proposed the bill in the first place. I even came across several students who were convinced Kerry took an anti-war stance in the current Iraqi war (he did not).

But voters on both the political right and left need to do their research. They owe it to themselves and their country.

Scott Stetson

Junior, visual communications