Especially before election day, America's voting-aged youth are subject to the influences of the media, overall public opinion and campaign promises, as is the larger and older population of ballot casters.

Young voters, however, are also targeted by other influential voices, both legitimate and not. Although Jon Stewart's 'The Daily Show' and Stephen Colbert's 'Colbert Report' explain and criticize American politics four nights a week in front of a television audience of millions of young viewers who are also subject to the more mainstream political influences, young people are sluggish and seemingly unmotivated to respond to these influences.

After every major election, statistics support the trend that the 18 to 29 age group of voters are notoriously known for low turnout. This low turnout is compared to the already disappointing American voter turnout; in the 2000 presidential election, less than 52% of the 205,815,000 eligible voters actually voted, according to the Federal Elections Commission.

With the City of Dayton and our campus being engulfed in election-year advertisements, speeches and rhetoric, the concern for young voter turnout is in the limelight once again.

With organizations, such as College Democrats and College Republicans, publicly pushing for candidates, students native to Ohio have had opportunities to get the story on these regional and state candidates. For example, Democratic Senatorial candidate Sherrod Brown visited campus and Brown and DeWine recently debated in Dayton, giving students direct access to the political spectrum and, hopefully, encouraging students to vote this November.

Unfortunately, UD's student population has shown signs of following the national trend of youthful voter inactivity. Sherrod Brown's visit was met with a welcome by few students, which surely will discourage Brown and his party's desire to visit UD, meaning that future students will have less direct access to the possible future faces of Ohio.

Even though many students may not be residents of Ohio and therefore cannot vote in Ohio elections, the political activity at the university and in the city and state should encourage young voters to become involved in politics in their own districts by sending in an absentee ballot.

Although UD students and the American youth have access to political influences and sources, these things should be unnecessary to motivate young adults to vote. Voting is a way for people to get involved in the formation of this country, which is absolutely necessary in a time of economic recovery and a national foreign policy that is inarguably controversial.

Young voters should be the section of the population most concerned with politics, because political actions of the present time will have repercussions in future years when this generation has its own families and careers.

Students should watch political commercials explaining campaign promises, pay attention to the actions, events, and speeches of politicians, and should make it to the polls on Election Day or send in absentee ballots. If the youth do not have a strong showing in upcoming elections, the concerns of our generation, whatever they may be, will be grossly underrepresented in the policies that give structure to our society.