A lot of candidates right now are lining up to spend a lot of money to get your vote. Millions of dollars get thrown around. You’re vote is valuable. Politico reports that a recent survey of 3,000 NYU students showed the 66% would be willing to trade their right to vote for a year of college without tuition. Maybe that just shows us that most Americans would give just about anything to not have to take out a second mortgage to get an education or go to a doctor.

Unfortunately there’s more. Half of the students surveyed would give up their right to vote for a million dollars. Now, I’d have held out for more, but it is a million bucks after all. I can even live with these poor fools who don’t realize that without that right to vote they will have no power to prevent those dollars from becoming worthless. There are some that are worse.

Yep, 20% would trade their right to vote in the next election for an iPod Touch.

But, they also overwhelmingly lauded the importance of voting.

Ninety percent of the students who said they’d give up their vote for the money also said they consider voting “very important” or “somewhat important”; only 10 percent said it was “not important.”

Also, 70.5 percent said they believe that one vote can make a difference — including 70 percent of the students who said they’d give up their vote for free tuition.

It’s very good to talk about the importance of voting. I’m sure this isn’t the last time you’ll hear about the virtues of voting here at the Daily Rational. But though I may kid about selling my right to vote, there is nothing in this world that I would take in trade for my freedom. That freedom is reliant upon the right to choose who speaks for me. I would never give up the right to delegate my power to the person I think best able to see my vision for the nation actualized. Certainly not for a lousy iPod.