As students, you are not alone.  Currently, students across the country really believe in community service and act on it more than any previous cohort of student.  This year, many have come to realize that it begins with voting.  Registration of voters under age 30 is breaking records everywhere.  For several decades, only about 25% of under-30s have turned out to vote in the USA, lower than turnout in other liberal democracies.  In contrast, voters over 65 turn out 80% of the time.  So, it is not just the candidates who are exceptional this year -- it is also you, the voters.

Isn't it too much trouble to vote?  You have to do paperwork, find your correct county and precinct polling station or arrange an absentee ballot at home.  Like most students, you likely have all kinds of activities and you are a spontaneous kind of person.  So, it is a challenge to plan ahead for a vote.  You may have a strong lead from parents on voting the party line (usually their own party!).  Sixty percent of young voters around the world vote for the party of their parents.  However, that is down over thirty years from 80%.  Without inheriting party affiliation, you have a lot of choosing to do.

You also get three chances to vote (primary, runoff and general elections) plus numerous positions to select.  The number of state and county offices -- including judges, sheriffs and police chiefs -- was astonishing to me -- I thought everywhere they were just appointed.  Referendum questions on policy also amazed me -- in some states there are dozens of questions, each one of a complicated policy issue.  So, it may not be surprising that our turnout rate for voting is the second lowest to Switzerland.

It is also complex if you, as a Southerner, have grandparents who are civil war Democrats and parents who are new, white Republicans.  If you are African American, you may have great grandparents who used to be Lincoln Republicans and parents who are civil rights Democrats.  No wonder the South produces great historians -- and plenty of political consultants!

Southerners have lower turnout rates unless there is a Southern candidate such as Jimmy Carter, "W." Bush or Bill Clinton.  However, Alabama's turnout rates are about average at 50%.  That could be because the civil rights period (among both races and all persuasions) raised your parents' generation's awareness of the power of the vote.  This year, African American registrations are also breaking all records -- and the college's second congressional district is 29% black, contributing to a competitive race this year that is attracting national attention.

I became a voteless alien for many years. I was not resident in the UK -- but only a visitor to the US.  Then, on 9/11, the World Trade Towers collapsed on live television.  I stood up in a packed chapel trying to find the words to give the college convocation some understanding of the pervasiveness of international terrorism, examples of the resistance of civil societies to terrorism, and the strength to carry on.  I decided that my gesture must be to become a US citizen.

I set out to vote in 2004 for the first time, having registered and found my correct precinct.  I lined up outside the polling station for a couple of hours, in the heat and then a crashing thunderstorm.  As I approached the entrance, I realized there was a couple more hours of line inside, within stifling corridors.  The few touch screen machines were far too slow for thousands of voters.  Sadly, I had to return to teaching without recording my first vote.

In 2006, I was able to show up, vote in five minutes, and leave.  What had changed, was that Judge McKinney (a smart HC alumnus) had ordered the county to purchase the finest voting system: multiple choice scanners.  Then many of us could vote simultaneously.  My solution was to vote for anyone who had spoken to my classes or hosted a field trip to the courts or capitol.  If not, then the one I would most like to speak to class.

What did a first vote mean to me, when I was a student in England?  Well I was a member of all three major parties: Conservative, Liberal and Labour.  I loved to listen to the arguments of politicians who came to speak to each of them.  However, when it came to the vote, I was warned off the Labour candidate by friends, since he was an infamously tough economics professor.  Later, he developed into a successful government minister and (that rare bird) a lively television economist.  So, I recommend hearing your candidates speak before you vote.

I envy current students, for you have the ability to call up speakers on YouTube from your own bedroom.  That certainly beats cycling three miles in the rain, and over cobblestones, to get to a speaker meeting.  On the other hand, it is rewarding to interrogate a speaker in person.  It was quite something to me (at 20 years) to question, on equal terms, a cabinet minister.

Ministers were quite honest with us in small seminars.  In a small evening discussion, Anthony Crosland --  the housing minister and the legendary architect of postwar moderate socialism -- confessed to us that Britain's huge public housing stock was a dilapidated failure.  It was a jaw-dropping moment.

I also learned from political clubs, even coming from a modest home of two art teachers, not to be intimidated by famous people.  When we asked a famous historian, Life Peer, and Catholic campaigner against pornography, what we should call him, he said "Lord Porn -- that's what the London cabbies always call me."