Ohio General Election on Nov 8

Ohio General Election will take place tomorrow (Nov 8). Ohio's voters will decide the fate of candidates and issues on their ballot, according to the State official website.

Senate Bill 5, known as limiting collective bargaining rights, is equivalent with Issue 2 in the referendum, remains as a hot topic in agenda.

Advocating activities and campaigns, with the enormous support of social media are being conducted everywhere for a NO on Issue 2.

Ohio University students can vote from 6:30 a.m. - 7:30 p.m on Tuesday, Nov. 8 at the following places:

1. Baker University Center

2. Jefferson Hall Library

3. City Hall

4. Community Center

View Where to vote in a larger map

From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy OhioU

Occupy Wall Street protest has headed to Ohio University campus under the name of Occupy OhioU on the occasion of Homecoming week (Oct 10-16).

The first event took place on Sunday, Oct 16 at the lawn nearby Alden library. There was about 20 participants including OU students and local people. The students set up tents with an attempt to "occupy" the area 24/7 the upcoming week. Participants formed as a circle and took turn to share their concerns over the protest at Wall Street and its spread to the entire country.

One student brought an article from a blog which indicated JPMorgan Chase bank donated $4.6 million, the biggest donation in its history, to New York Policy Department to strengthen security in the city.

OU President, Roderick McDavis, said the demonstration didn't bother him and he thought it was great to have students and faculty to express their thoughts and feelings on the issues of American time.

Do OU Students Really Care about Senate Bill 5?

Senate Bill 5 (SB5) is now a very controversial political issue in the State of Ohio. Signed into law by Gov. Kasich in March, SB5 will limit collective bargaining rights of public employees. Ohio SB5 veto referendum, known as Issue 2, is scheduled to appear on the general election ballot in November to repeal SB5.

Athens County, the poorest county of Ohio is expected to suffer from SB5 as most of its public employees are working at Ohio University (OU), the largest employer of the whole county. A protest of about 250 OU students took place on campus in March to oppose the cutting budget proposal of Gov. Kasich in higher education sector which OU belongs to. Last Wednesday, more than 50 OU students showed up at the OU Student Senate weekly meeting to speak out on SB5 and request the Student Senate to take a stance on it.

However, the above mentioned groups of students is modest compared with the total of 20,857 students, Athens campus alone. A large number of students do not care or even know about SB5. Many students think it is a political issue and not directly affecting them. "OU students are no different than most people in the world. A lot of people don't pay attention to politics", said David Smith, a student at OU. From the side of OU Student Senate, they seems to have the same opinion said by President Kyle Triplett : “The opinion of the Student Senate executives is that it’s not Student Senate’s role to get involved in issues that are purely political".

We will need to wait for an official figure to know exactly how many students really care about SB5, how many of them sign in form to vote against it and for them SB5 is just a State issue or OU-related issue.