THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2008
NEWS
3A
ELECTION
How to make the most of your next vote
BY JESSE TRIMBLE jtrimble@kansan.com
This election season, the University's 1,964 students who are originally from swing states could cast the most important votes for president.
A Web site called CountMore.org helps students attending college out of state choose the state where their votes will matter most. In swing states, determining the electoral votes could come down to a few hundred ballots. CountMore.org also provides information for students about how to register if they haven't yet and when registrations are due in their home or school state.
Matt Lerner, originally from Topeka, helped create the site as an employee of Front Seat, a software company in Seattle.
Liz Feigenbaum, Boston junior, said she registered to vote when she turned 18. This year, Feigenbaum decided to request an absentee ballot from Massachusetts.
Lerner said the idea to create CountMore.org came from his work registering voters on college campuses during the 2004 election.
"I would ask students if they were aware that their vote counted more back in Ohio, their home state, than their school state." Lerner said. "Most students had no idea their vote actually mattered that much."
But Lerner said it was a big deal, especially when certain states, such as Ohio and Florida, can be determined by fewer than 600 votes, as was the case in the 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al Gore.
Keith Campbell, deputy clerk for elections in Douglas County, said the site neglected the importance of local elections.
"Obviously, the Web site is focusing on the presidential elections, but what I think is more important for students to realize is that who they vote for locally could have more of an impact on their daily lives than who they vote for as president," Campbell said.
According to CountMore.org, the 2004 election results for Kansas were a margin victory of 25.73 percent. Bush had 736,456 votes, and John Kerry had 434,993. Kansas has six electoral votes, but Feigenbaum's home state of Massachusetts has 12. When comparing Kansas to Massachusetts, CountMore.org said that it was a toss up between both states, because neither is considered a swing state.
"KU is 14th on the list of schools that aren't in swing states themselves, but have a lot of students from swing states." Lerner said.
Feigenbaum said students would be less likely to vote if they knew their state wasn't a swing state.
"I think, generally speaking, if a student has evidence that their state doesn't matter as much as another state, that it would make them less inclined to vote," she said.
Lerner said students were in a unique voting position.
"They are the only group of people that can really choose which state they want to vote in, and I think most students don't realize what a huge choice that is," Lerner said.
But, Campbell said, students needed to think about the local issues and ask themselves what affects them and what was most important to them. He gave the Lawrence Transit System, also known as the "T", as an example because the sales tax could increase to maintain bus service if voters approved the ballot questions.
He said that because students paid sales taxes in Douglas County, it was an important issue to consider.
It is the student's decision to vote only for the president, Campbell said, "but the local issues are just as important, if not more."
- Edited by Lauren Keith
Stocks plunge after House defeats $700B bailout
ECONOMY
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — In a vote that shook the government, Wall Street and markets around the world, the House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue for the nation's financial system, leaving both parties and the Bush administration scrambling to pick up the pieces. The Dow Jones industrials plunged nearly 800 points, the most ever for a single day.
"We need to put something back together that works," a grim-faced
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said after he and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke joined in an emergency strategy session at the White House. On Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders said the House would reconvene Thursday, leaving open the possibility that it could vote later in the week on a reworked version.
All sides agreed the effort to bolster beleaguered financial markets could not be abandoned.
But in a remarkable display on Monday, a majority of House members slapped aside the best version
ASSOCIATED PRESS
how Kansas representatives voted
their leaders and the administration had been able to come up with, bucking presidential speeches, pleading visits from Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and urgent warnings that the economy could nose dive without the lesiisiat on.
Congressional leaders didn't get much help from Kansas lawmakers Monday in their effort to pass emergency legislation addressing the nation's financial crisis.
This video image provided by the House of Representative shows the voting by the House on the emergency financial rescue package. The House defeated a $700 billion package, ignoring urgent pleas from President Bush and bipartisan congressional leaders to quickly bail out the staggering financial industry.
Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore, of Lenexa, was alone among the state's four House members in voting for the $700 billion rescue plan. The
measure that top lawmakers spent all weekend negotiating failed 228-205.
Opposing the measure were Democratic Rep. Nancy Boyda, of Topeka, and Republican Reps. Todd Tiahrt, of the Wichita area, and Jerry Moran, of western Kansas.
Associated Press
In the face of thousands of phone calls and e-mails fiercely opposing the measure, many lawmakers were not willing to take the political risk of voting for it just five weeks before the elections.
The bill went down, 2 28-205.
The House Web site was overwhelmed as millions of people sought information about the measure through the day:
The legislation the administration promoted would have allowed the government to buy bad mortgages and other sour asses ts held by troubled banks and other financial institutions. Getting those debts off their books should bols ter those companies' balance sheets, making them more inclined to lend and ease one of the bigger stoke points in a national credit crisis. If the plan worked, the thinking
went, it would help lift a major weight off the national economy, which is already sputtering.
In the meantime, Paulson said he would work with other regulators "to use all the tools available to protect our financial system and
our economy."
Stocks started plummeting on Wall Street even before Monday's vote was over, as traders watched the rescue measure going down on television. Meanwhile, lawmakers were watching them back.
Students, families attend Stouffer Family Music Festival
CAMPUS
BY SACHIKO MIYAKAWA
smiyakawa@kansan.com
A variety of music and a mix of different languages characterized the first-ever Stouffer Family Music Festival. Students and their families who live in the Stouffer Place Apartments gathered at the Burge Union for the concert on Saturday evening.
Stouffer Place Apartments is
Michelle Sprehe/KANSAN
home to 280 families. Students must be married or have children to live in the apartments.
Eric Williams, a student living in the apartments, stood in front of the audience with his wife and two children. He sang with his 3-year-old daughter, Zoe. Zoe, who wore a denim one-piece and pink tights that she picked out herself, overcame her shyness for her performance of "I'm a Little Teapot."
The concert, sponsored by the Stouffer Neighborhood Association, featured 20 groups of resident-performers and students pursuing music majors at the University.
Seyool Oh, Seoul, Korea, graduate student and president of the Stouffer Neighborhood Association, said most of the residents were nontraditional students living with their families. He said the concert allowed their children to enjoy live music and encouraged residents to get to know each other.
Williams, Wichita law student, practiced singing with Zoe in his spare time between studying and housework.
Eric Williams, Wichita law student, and his 3-year-old daughter, Zoe, listen to a performance from "The Sound of Music" at the Stouffer Family Music Festival in the Burge Unioin on Saturday. "Hopefully the kids will be inspired by the music," said Don Claus, vice president of the Stouffer Neighborhood Association.
Williams said he chose to live at Stouffer Place because of its low rent and location close to campus and the Hilltop Child Development Center. He said his family also benefitted from the close-knit community of residents.
"No kids are strangers in our community," Williams said.
"My children have friet ids from Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Beijing," Williams said.
Williams said he also liked the diversity of the residents.
Oh said almost 90 percent of the residents were international students and their families. He said many international students worried about adapting to American culture smoothly. The international community at Stouffer Place helps ease the concerns of students who are new to the apartments, he said.
The diversity of the residents was reflected in the performers and audience members, who spoke their native languages and wore the clothing from t heir home countries.
Linda Tsevi, Accrri, Ghana, graduate student, was one of the performers. Tsevi, who came to the United States a year ago to study education at the University, sang a Christian song in her native language, Twi.
Despite the unfamiliar language, the audience of more than
180 people clapped along.
The audience enjoyed a variety of music in the concert, including a piano sonata by Mozart, "Over the Rainbow" and "Beauty and the Beast." Some songs were sung in different languages.
Barbara Williams, Eric Williams' wife, said she liked the diversity of performers in the festival.
"It is great to hear music from all over the cultures," she said.
Edited by Becka Cremer
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