My PSL mentor is Jon Knaggs. Jon is a second year student who, like myself, is currently enrolled in the Fisher College of Business. Coincidentally, Jon is also pursing a bachelors degree in accounting. About a week ago I sat down with Jon to ask him a few questions and gain some insight on how to succeed as a freshman at OSU. I ambushed Jon with a plethora of questions about all there is to know about OSU. However, to save you all time I am going to give just the highlights of the conversation Jon and I had. I’ll start with probably the most important question I asked Jon all day, where is the best place to eat on campus? Jon replied, “The Market on Neil”. According to Jon it’s a better “Union” restaurant, so count me in. I also asked him if he preferred to write notes on the iPad or handwritten? He said that he preferred the iPad because it helped him stay a lot more organized than he used to be. Thinking ahead to my future semesters at OSU, I asked Jon what classes he recommend I take next year. He recommended two classes: Early American Political History and Business Calculus. I’m currently taking Business Calc at the moment and I agree with Jon, so far it’s been a great class. The last tip I would like to share with you all is where Jon recommended to study for his classes. Jon said, despite the critics to his answer,  that his favorite place to study is his own room. He also recommended the basement of the 18th Avenue Library. Well, that just about raps Jon up!

With more than one third of eligible voters in America choosing to disregard their vote on Election Day, our nation finds itself behind many of the world’s developing nations in participation at electoral polls. In the summer of 2016, the Pew Research Center ranked the United States 31st out of a group of 35 countries, who have democratic systems much like our own, in participation in voter turnout. Needless to say something must be done in order to increase a dwindling number of voters in the United States.

I have actually pondered this question many times before. In my recent government class in high school we talked about to low voter turnout in the United States. Our teacher suggested basic ideas such as putting together organizations to advertise the importance of voting and commercializing the need to vote. However, I believe that something must be done on the national level if any big impact is going to made. With that being said, I believe the answer to this desperate question is incentive. If the government where to give citizens a $50 reward for voting, citizens would surely get of their couch and find the nearest voting stage. Although this solution may seem costly, I feel as though it is the only resolution to a problem that must be fixed. If a bill were to be passed on the national level in favor of my idea to offer incentives to voters, I am certain the percentage of voter participation will increase drastically.

Instead of doing the impossible and very controversial solution of eliminating the electoral college or making gerrymandering illegal, I feel just giving the citizens a simple incentive to vote will drastically increase the number of voters. The majority of people would easily take the $50 for giving up thirty minutes of their time. The only problem to this solution is I feel as though this incentive would not fit to well with the conservatives beliefs. Giving away money and increasing voter turnout isn’t a top priority  for the Republicans to say the least. Nonetheless, I strongly affirm my position that an incentive would increase voter turnout in a significant manner.