With the presidential election coming up this Tuesday, millions of voters across the United States still have to finish casting their ballots. Both parties have tried to appeal to college students to bring them out to the polls and increase their chances of winning.
I’m a senior at the University of Connecticut and this would be my first time voting in a presidential election, along with millions of students across the nation. This is a time where I get to formulate my own decision on who I want to elect. Despite being excited about being able to vote, I found myself in confusion on how to vote, despite researching online, because I’m away from my home state of New Jersey.
I asked four fellow UConn college students their thoughts about voting for the first time. Two of the students do not reside in Connecticut – one is from a red state and the is from a blue state. Another student is a U.S. citizen but does not live in the United States, and another student’s hometown is Storrs where UConn is located.
“It was kind of stressful,” said Noah Hyman. “This is the first presidential election I am voting in. I voted for other elections, for example my mom ran for town council two years ago and was able to vote then.”
Hyman, a mechanical engineering major, is a resident of Metuchen, NJ. He found that being a college student here in Connecticut it was a little more difficult to vote out-of-state. When asked about an absentee ballot, Hyman said he understands that it “allows for people who are not allowed to be in their own state to have their own voice heard.”
But he still chose to go home to vote because he was in the area around election time.
Hyman explained that UConn starting this year does not at first give campus residents their mail key. Mail keys have to be requested upon the student living in residential dorms. This may be a dilemma for students who want to vote but have to add an extra step to physically get their ballot and do so.
Hyman believes the school can do a better job using social media as a resource to get students out to vote. “I think the school can do a better job being direct about it,” he said.
Hyman said he saw a sign being put in his residence hall dorm about getting out to vote but has not seen any social media on his personal feed, but has seen people around campus attempting to get the student body out to vote.
A UConn nutritional science major on the pre-medicine track whose home state is Florida felt this election was “crucial to vote” even though it was their first time voting.
This student – who did not want to give a name – did not find it difficult to vote despite living in another state. This student used an absentee ballot and went to their county voting registration site. The county was able to mail the ballot here to UConn and from there they were able to cast their vote and send it back.
“At first it was not hard casting the ballot. It is the fact that when you apply for an absentee ballot you don’t get a date of when it is going to come in. I applied in August and it came in October” says the student.
Mariam Vargas is a senior political science and international relations major, and she is voting in Storrs as a registered Connecticut resident.
“I feel a lot of responsibility towards voting. The suffragettes fought for the right [of] women to vote and the civil rights movement for African American to vote,” she said. “It would be a disservice to those movements to not exercise my rights.”
Vargas has voted before in the midterm elections in 2022 and did not find it hard at all to figure out where to vote despite being a U.S. citizen living in the Dominican Republic.
“I think I have a unique perspective because a lot of people are thinking about domestic policies but I look more over the foreign policies that the candidates are putting forward since I am a U.S. citizen that lives in the DR and I see the U.S. from that lens,” says Vargas.
“UConn had a lot of information and resources,” she added.
Vargas said how nice it was to see collaborations to help people register to vote and having an early voting location available for the first time on campus at the UConn Bookstore.
“I think there is always room for improvement,” Briana Ashton said.
Ashton, a UConn speech language major, is from Mansfield. Ashton, a sophomore, explained she felt excited to vote but is nervous for where the election is going. She knows that Connecticut is a blue state, but believes her vote still matters in general.
Ashton has voted before on the local level and found it easier to vote because she lives in Mansfield, the town where UConn’s main campus is located, but she mentioned multiple people coming up to her and asking her things about what an absentee ballot does and where they would get their mail if they applied for one.
Every student has a unique perspective about voting, depending on where they are from. For myself, between searching and confirming deadlines I have to abide by, looking up places where I can vote, looking up places where I can possibly drop off my mail-in ballot, I found the common theme is how confusing it all is.
Colleges across the board should accommodate and advertise all avenues for students exercising their right to vote despite whether within the state, outside the state, or even outside the country if they are a U.S. citizen.
I found the best way for myself to vote was early voting back home in New Jersey this past weekend. This was not the most convenient decision to leave campus to travel and vote, but I found it to be viable and the best option for me.
Jalen Allen is a senior majoring in Journalism and Communications at the University of Connecticut.