USC students who are also residents of the Columbia area will have the chance to cast their ballot this week, but the question remains: Will they actually go to the polls?
Local municipal elections will be held in Columbia on Tuesday. During this election, the city will decide who will be sitting on the city council seats for districts one and four. Mayor Steve Benjamin is unopposed, so that position will not be on the ballot.
With the election pressing, most students said that they were unaware of it. One such individual was third-year international business student Chris Fetemie.
"I didn't know [the election] was Nov. 7, but I knew there was one in this month," Fetemie said. "I don't really know too much about the candidates and I didn't want to make an ill-informed decision."
After learning about the election however, Fetemie said he planned on going out and voting.
"It's the first step to something bigger," Fetemie said. "Like the game of Jenga, if you take out the very bottom cube, most likely everything else on the top layers are going to fall out, so you need to make sure you have a solid base."
While many students said they were unaware of the election, some simply did not care. First-year mechanical engineering student Khadeem Dennis, after learning of the election, still did not plan on voting.
"I'm really just not interested in politics honestly," Dennis said. "Usually no matter what you vote, it's usually just not really a change, so it's just not something that interests me."
While most students had no idea of the specifics of the election, many said they were determined to go out and vote after they were informed, such as third-year marketing student David Toro. Toro was completely unaware of the election. However, after learning of its existence, said he would most likely be going out to vote.
"I think it's important because, you know, it is the city we live in," Toro said." You have to choose what you want for your city, and if you don't do it, there's no way for you to actually make that impact on it."