In honor of the upcoming election, the Institute for Citizenship and Social Responsibility sponsored a discussion about voting titled “You’re Too Stupid To Vote?”

At the forum Tuesday, Jeffrey Kash, associate professor of political science, led the discussion about who is most likely to vote.

Kash posed the question, “Do you want a small number of informed people voting or a large number of uninformed people voting?” 

During the discussion, he said older people are more likely to vote because they understand how government works. 

“It really has to do with kind of being engaged in the system,” he said.

The panel talked about ways to make voting easier, as well as voting patterns. 

Senior Sarah Brazier, of Wadsworth, Ohio, was there because of her Honor’s thesis. Brazier said it could be easy to get overwhelmed when studying politics.

“When you’re watching these patterns over time and you see that it’s all kind of one big pattern repeating itself; it makes you cynical, and it becomes disappointing,” Brazier said. 

Kash talked about how some people want government to do certain things, yet when they vote they don’t have a say in the specific details. 

“Translating a vote into government action is hard,” Kash said.

Other topics of discussion were what exactly it means to be informed and whether or not groups like the homeless and felons should be allowed to vote. 

After the discussion, Saundra Ardrey, co-director and co-founder of ICSR, said she hopes events like this would engage students.

“With the election coming up, this is a great opportunity for us to talk to students about issues of concern and to get them involved in voting,” Ardrey said. 

Following the discussion, students were given registration cards so they could register to vote. Ardrey said seven students registered. 

“I think that these activities and events like this really engage the students, and so now if we can excite them to register to vote, then we’ve got to make sure that they turn out to vote,” she said.