Boston--The Boston political machine might be going into the shop for a tune-up as 20-year-old Eric Karian enters the poltical struggle. Karian is currently working on getting on the ballot for next November's election, but regardless of whether he gets on or not, he has been stirring things up for other politicians.
Karian has done his homework and found out a good deal of information on how to get students registered to vote. And not just by setting up a table on the lawn outside a concert. He has approached, successfully, several prominent local schools about incorporating voter registration with normal class registration, a move that could make the eligable voting population reduce its median age by almost 15 years, which has a few politicians a little nervous.
Karian has researched what absentee ballot voting means for each of the fifty states, in terms of residency, taxes, and the all important state school tuition, for those concerned about returning home for graduate school. With this info, Karian hopes that people will be convinced to register locally, and from there, vote for politicians who protect their interests, namely student interests. And Karian hopes to be that politician.
The effects of this are not known, and won't be for a while. But if this information, which he plans to make available world wide over the web, ends up in the hands of students from schools other than Boston, we might see student participation in government escalate to levels we haven't seen in this country since the sixties. Only this time, the kids will be working within the system.