La Voz

I have a favor to ask all students at De Anza College: Please don't vote in the elections this week.

By all means, ignore the dozens of campaign posters and banners plastered around campus begging for your vote. Don't let the clever catch phrases or candidates' campaign promises suck you in to the voting booth.

Every year, De Anza's elections committee is happy to get at least a few hundred people to vote at a college with a population of nearly 25,000 students. Most students could care less about the elections and wouldn't take the time to vote if you paid them.

Some of you, though, will insist on going to the polls this week. You might be enticed to vote by being offered extra credit by your instructors. Some of you might vote out of some strange desire to be "involved" in the decisions that affect your school. It is, of course, OK if just a few of you vote this week, since we need at least 3 percent of the total De Anza population to go to the polls in order for the election to be ratified.

But, hopefully, most of you will stay away. The fewer people who vote, the fewer people those of us who hope to get into office will be "accountable" to and have to produce "results" for.

Like Dr. Evil and his sinister cohorts, we'll sit in our underground lair, the DASB Senate office, and make decisions for you. We'll decide where over $1 million dollars of your money should go to. You shouldn't have any part of the decisions. After all, as one student senator said during a DASB meeting last quarter, most of you are "walking zombies."

Then, next year, if the senate decides to add mandatory fees to your tuition to pay for services or programs you have no interest in, you can just go along with it and happily fork over the money.

If a group of non-smoking senators decides they want to com- pletely ban smoking everywhere on campus - even in the parking lots - smokers will just have to accept it or choose a more smoker friendly college. If the senate slashes funding for a De Anza program that is important to you, you can just sit there and take it. Remember, you made the decision not to take five to 10 minutes of your life to vote.

So, please, do your duty as an apathetic student and a member of the disenchanted MTV generation and stay away from the voting booth this week. Stay far, far away from the Main Quad Monday through Thursday from 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and from 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. on Friday. You have much better things to do. Thank you for your time and indifference.

Editor's note: Dan Sealana is a DASB senator candidate in this week's elections.

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