Death Cab will play you to vote

On Nov. 4, our nation will decide who will become the next president of the United States. With all the attention the election has been receiving in the media, many people already have staunch opinions on which candidate they will or will not be voting for. But what about all the 18-year-olds who can vote but have yet to decide whether they will? Where do their loyalties lie? Students who don't register to vote don't realize that their votes can make a difference and change the course of history. To motivate more students to register, a new non-partisan project called Ultimate College Bowl, has set up an initiative to get more students to vote by providing incentives. That's where Death Cab for Cutie comes in.

Death Cab for Cutie is one of the most famous indie rock acts in America and is a big attraction to most college students. At the insistence of guitarist Chris Walla, the band has agreed to perform a free show at the college that registers the most students to vote in the upcoming presidential election. Despite that they do not consider themselves a political band, they recognize that it is very important to increase voter turnout for not just the presidential election, but smaller-scale elections as well.

"Yes, this is a big presidential election year, but it's really important for people to understand and to get connected with the issues in their cities," Walla said. When asked about his own reasons for getting people to vote, he said, "It was just really disheartening for me to find out that more people were voting in American Idol than were voting in the primaries."

Walla continued to express his belief that once more young people start getting involved, the big issues will be resolved quicker and the little issues will fall right into place thanks to the efforts of Ultimate College Bowl.

Ultimate College Bowl is a project put together by four of the leading non-partisan voter registration groups - Declare Yourself, HeadCount, Student PIRGs, and Rock the Vote - in conjunction with Why Tuesday?, a leading voter-education organization. Their mission is to get as many students as possible to register to vote and involved in their community through the use of incentives. These incentives vary from scholarships and trips to concerts, which are given away and advertised by grassroot companies and viral marketing campaigns. Ultimate College Bowl also joined with MySpace and MTV to reach as many young adults as possible. "The Ultimate College Bowl is a great way to use music to drive voter registration, which is core to our mission," Andy said.

Bernstein, executive director of HeadCount, said, "This effort will mobilize thousands of campuses and millions of students."

While the Ultimate College Bowl is dedicated to registering students to vote, it does not try to force students to choose one candidate over the other. It feels that it is the student's job to choose and hopes that the contest will be enough to get students registered. By creating this competition, it makes democracy a bit more entertaining and interactive. Ultimate College Bowl's MySpace page is set up so that students can go to check up their school's status at anytime. Currently, Boston College is not even in the top 10. The current first place holder has 1,093 voters while SUNY at Stony Brook has second place with 849 registered voters. One BC student, Kristoffer Munden, has an account that is currently in second place in the student registration section with 128 registered voters. His account is a registered collaboration between the UGBC, College Republicans and College Democrats. While only 128 students are currently registered, paper registrations will help bolster the number of students registered for BC. Given the nature of this competition, BC could probably win one of the two competitions.

Since the Ultimate College Bowl keeps track of number of students registered and percentage of the student body registered, it is easy to check up on everyone's stats at any time. In spite of over 400 schools committed to the competition, their numbers are still low enough that if the general student body of BC pooled its resources, it would most likely win. If every new freshman registered to vote, BC could likely clinch the top spot and win the Death Cab for Cutie concert. So while you're sitting there debating whether you're going to register to vote, think about all that you would accomplish just by registering. And if you're still unconvinced, go dig up a copy of Death Cab's "We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes" to see if that will change your mind. For more information on Ultimate College Bowl, check out its page on MySpace.