It will never cease to amaze me how few people vote in non-presidential elections. On Tuesday, April 7, Wisconsin had two statewide elections. They were for state Supreme Court and State Superintendent . Now, I do understand that many students who attend UW-P are out of state or out of county citizens, but you can always fill out an absentee ballot for your home state and county so your voice is heard.

Not knowing who the candidates are or what they stand for is a very weak excuse in today’s age. Every person running for every office has some sort of Web page. A simple search on a state’s Web site make these Web pages very easy to find. There is little excuse for Wisconsin residents, myself, or for out-of-state students not to vote in an election.

Only 792,798 votes total were casted for Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court and 766,632 for the State Superintendent according to wisconsin.gov. The Wisconsin Government Accountability Board says about 20 percent of Wisconsin’s eligible voters are expected to go to the polls April 7.

This is what democracy has come to: 20 percent of the eligible voters electing our public officials?

Throughout our nation’s history, men and women have fought and died for universal suffrage. During the early years of the constitution only land-owning white men above the age of 21 could vote. As time went on, the right to vote was almost universal among men, and the 19th Amendment gave women 21 and older the right to vote. The 26th Amendment lowered the voting age to 18. All of these struggles to build a true democracy led to only 20 percent of Wisconsin residents voting for two statewide elections in 2009? Where has our duty to public service gone? Do we just not care anymore and hope someone else will think for us?