I haven’t really talked much about voting. And that is strange because one of the first things I was asked by the (numerous) people that walk around campus doing different stuff was: Have you registered to vote yet? Unfortunately, I had to disappoint them each time, saying I was not American (but apparently look American) and thus cannot vote.

To illustrate the eagerness people have here, take a look at the picture below that I took today. This guy has been sitting on the same spot every day since I arrived in Eugene. I had a small chat with him today about the election and I asked him if he had been able to shift people from McCain to Obama. The answer was no and his comment was: “They are not voting for McCain, they are voting for Palin.” A rather cynical (but maybe true) point of view but he did also seem a little more extreme (i.e. more leftwing) than me.

So why is this guy still sitting around all day every day. Why is this so important that volunteers are on the street all the time. First of all, you actually have to register to vote in America. An annoyance. But people would like to help you with that. Normally only about 50% of the Americans actually cast a vote (in Denmark this is normally above 80%) so a lot of voices are not heard. So people help people register.

What comes after that: The actual voting. Of the people that registered to vote, many do not use their vote. Maybe they have to stand in line for six hours and just give up. Another annoyance. Clearly, the system works better in Denmark where election cards are just printed out and sent to everyone that eligible to vote. The manual vote counting and short lines further streamline the voting process, I think.

The problem is so serious in the US that they even manage to get top celebrities to participate in videos to get people to vote. If you haven’t watched the 5 friends videos yet, they are very entertaining and interesting. CEO’s of major companies encourage their employees to go vote and everyone is talking about voting.

Now, back to the campus. Today is election day. Every volunteer is doing his/her best to get everyone to turn in their voting ballots. It is very exciting and I hope I get to follow the election during the evening (an assignment for tomorrow could potentially be a killer).

I will end this post with an ocean of leaves. My campus is really beautiful!