By Anand Venigalla
Features Editor
Midterm elections were yesterday. Were students registered to vote? Does voting matter in the end?
Emma Anderson, a first-year musical theater student, was registered to vote and thought her vote mattered. “I want to always vote. Women worked hard to gain their right to vote; I’m going to use it,” she said before Election Day. “I want to hopefully help to put people in power who will be better able to represent me, [as well as] women and people of the LGBT community. Voting does help.”
Geena Anesta, a first-year special education student, was also registered to vote and planned to vote in the mid- term elections. “I’m Republican so I’m going to vote for the Republican Party,” she said. Anesta believes that “everyone should vote.”
Helen Flores, a freshman forensics science major, was registered to vote but had never voted before. “Right now I feel it’s important to vote, but I’ve never had time for it. In the future I feel like I would definitely vote,” she said.
“I feel voting is very [impactful] for our future so our vote [impacts] how our future’s going to be,” Flores continued.
Brianna LiCausi, a senior health and physical education major, was registered and planned to vote in the midterm elections. She believes more can be done. “[O]ne vote will not do anything alone, you need the whole community to vote. [I]f you vote, you can at least say you did something, but if people want change they have to go to the polls and share their facts and stand up for what they believe in.”
Victoria Boccella, a senior public relations student, was registered to vote and planned to vote in the midterm elections. “I think my vote’s meaningful; I think when you turn 18, and you can vote, it’s a waste not to,” she said. She planned to vote Republican out of her general agreement with conservative views, but would not discount voting for a Democrat.
Kalvin Orech, a junior broadcasting major, is apathetic about voting in general. He is not registered to vote. “I don’t care; it doesn’t apply to me,” he said. “I know it sounds ignorant, but I just don’t care enough to pay attention to whoever’s [running].”
Orech believes the political scene and its changes have little impact on him to pay attention. He will not consider voting in the future, but he encourages those who care to vote.
According to an April 3, 2018 Pew Research report, millennials comprised 27 percent of the voting-eligible population in 2016, while millennials as a generation consisted of 62 million eligible voters.
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