Today, Evanston residents will shape the future of their city. That is, they’ll go to the polls to elect a new mayor and city council.

I know, I know – that’s your cue to stop reading this column. Students don’t care about the Evanston elections.

I know this because of six months of seeing my election stories at the bottom of the all-important “Most Popular” tab on our Web site. And I know it because of a recent DAILY poll. The poll, admittedly a completely unscientific survey of 100 students wandering around Norris, found that just 4 percent of NU students plan to vote today.

So trust me, I know that you don’t care.

What I can’t figure out is why.

It isn’t because the election won’t affect you. The mayor and aldermen elected today will be the ones who decide whether or not property taxes will be raised next year, or the year after that. If the taxes are raised, students will have to pay more to live off-campus.

They’ll be the ones who decide in which direction to take the downtown area. If the new officeholders continue the current focus on condominium development downtown, more businesses could follow Cafe Ambrosia’s lead and close down.

They’ll be the ones who decide how to address recent safety problems with Sheridan Road. If they decide to make increasing safety on Sheridan a priority, fewer students will be hit as they scamper across campus’ main thoroughfare.

These are issues that students do care about, and I don’t need a poll to tell me that.

So why don’t they care about the election?

It isn’t because students don’t care about politics. I participated in several intense arguments with fellow students during the presidential campaign. I was at Grant Park five months ago and I saw the hundreds of students who joined me. And I heard the loud cheers echoing down the hall of 1835 Hinman during President Barack Obama’s historic inauguration speech. Students do care about politics.

And I’m sure it can’t be because the race isn’t exciting enough. The mayor’s race is a tight 4-way competition. It features one candidate endorsed by current mayor Lorraine Morton, Sen. Dick Durbin and seemingly every other politician ever (Elizabeth Tisdahl), a Medill grad who is staging an insurgent campaign based on “shoe leather” and Obama-like grassroots efforts (Barnaby Dinges), a 66-year resident who would have dropped the nuclear bomb on Russia during the Cold War if the president ordered (Stuart Opdycke), and one who basically lives across the street from Tech (Jeanne Lindwall).

I’m writing this less than ten hours before polls open, and I honestly have no idea who will win.

The aldermanic races in the wards that include students are all equally compelling. In the 1st ward, two bitter rivals are squaring off in a rematch of the 2005 race that led the loser and current green pet store owner (Judy Fiske) to sue the winner (Cheryl Wollin) for conspiring to buy the NU student vote. The 7th ward race, on the other hand, includes the self-proclaimed “bowling alley candidate” who pledges to fill Evanston’s long-lamented lack of bowling (John Zbesko) and another candidate who has spoken out against essentially every Evanston politician currently in office (Kevin O’Connor).

Again, I have no idea if the bowling candidate will pull it off, or if another disgruntled candidate will start a lawsuit based on today’s election.

If anything, I think today’s election puts the presidential one to shame. Yet somehow I think fewer NU students will vote today than did in November.

I hope you surprise me. Or at least click on this enough to finally get an election story near the top of that “Most Popular” list.

Medill sophomore Brian Rosenthal can be reached at [email protected].