Poll workers help students check-in at the Virginia Commonwealth University Commons Tuesday morning just after 9 a.m. (Charlie Paullin/Virginia Mercury)
Editor’s note: This story was reported by Charles Paullin and student journalist Katie Farthing in a special Election Day collaboration between The Virginia Mercury and VCU Capital News Service.
RICHMOND, Va. — On Tuesday morning, outside the Virginia Commonwealth University polling location on the second floor of the Student Commons, several students shared their same-day voter registration experiences and the top policy issues driving their choice between presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Reproductive rights, housing and economic policy were among the young voters’ chief concerns.
Many students use same-day voter registration and provisional ballots
TriVonda Mines, the chief officer of elections at the VCU Student Commons polling location, the largest precinct in the area, saw a steady flow of voters since the 6 a.m. start, but noted it had not been as busy as previous presidential elections. She expects around 1,800 to 2,100 votes Tuesday, she said, and anticipates at least 300 of those to be provisional ballots.
A problem with provisional ballots on college campuses is that students often mix up their residency and home address. Students in residence halls must put their residence address, not their home address, in order to have their vote count in the district, according to Mines. The Commons polling location included a separate area designated for provisional ballots, a ballot used when a voter cannot confirm proper identification or forgot to register in advance.
Jyson Willow, a senior interdisciplinary studies student at VCU, voted using a provisional ballot because he forgot about the registration deadline. Willow moved to the Richmond area over a year ago and still doesn’t have a Virginia license, so he was unable to register online beforehand.
“I think it was stressful, just because of the amount of people that were having to do it today,” Willow said.
Willow said he was glad voting via provisional ballot was easy because choosing a presidential candidate is stressful.
“It’s almost like picking the lesser of two evils, because I don’t necessarily align perfectly with one party,” Willow said.
Caitlin Przywara, a senior information systems student at VCU, also voted using a provisional ballot because she did not originally plan to vote and thought she had missed her chance to do so.
“It actually went by pretty fast,” Przywara said. “We didn’t know if we could register, we thought it was too late.”
After casting their provisional ballot, voters have until Friday, Nov. 8 at 10 a.m. to provide valid identification, after which the local electoral board decides which provisional ballots will be counted.
Truesdale, the chief election officer at the George Washington Carver Elementary School, anticipated a majority of provisional ballots. The elementary school is a polling location for two upperclassmen residence halls at VCU.
The Institute of Contemporary Art is a polling location for one VCU residence hall and Chief Officer of Elections Brooks Braun noted a steady flow of voters and anticipated around 60 provisional ballots by the time polls close.
Student voters focused on reproductive health care, housing, economic policy
Many of the college students interviewed shared that they voted for Harris, because her policy positions most closely resemble their own.s
Along with being an advocate for women’s rights, Yurida Martinez, a freshman, said the Harris housing policy plan to provide a $25,000 downpayment for first-time homebuyers appealed to her.
Vanessa Lemus, a graduate student, agreed and added, “I really like the credit for first-time homebuyers.”
“I’m already 26 years old, so (homeownership) is something I want to do in the future, in a couple of years,” Lemus said.
Lemus, who identifies as queer, said Trump’s proposed policy that would expand corporate tax cuts would only help “if you’re making six figures or more.” That, and Trump’s rhetoric disparaging immigrants and others, dissuaded her from voting for him.
“Throughout his presidency, the last time he was president, and throughout the campaign, he really just kind of used harmful rhetoric toward different marginalized groups,” Lemus said. “Not only that, but (Trump) has allowed for people that are voting for him to feel like it’s ok to do as well.”
Przywara did not vote in the 2020 election, but chose to this year because of her dislike for Trump.
“We’ve already seen what Trump has done,” Przywara said. “It’s gonna be different, if she (Harris) does become President.”
The sparse support for Trump Tuesday, Lemus said, is on trend for a liberal campus in an urban center of the state that reliably votes Democratic.
“This is a very liberal campus, a very eccentric, collective campus where you have a lot of different types of students coming from different backgrounds, different places,” Lemus said.
Advocates say same-day voting tears down barriers for student voters
Same-day registration across Virginia’s college campuses “has been huge,” said Will Winters, state director for NextGen America, a non-partisan advocacy group focused on youth voting. The Virginia legislature passing its same-day registration law in 2020, which took effect in 2022, has “torn down a lot of barriers to voting,” for students, he said. That expanded access leads candidates to engage with young voters more, Winters said, and makes it easier for all citizens to participate in the democratic process.
“There’s a lot of people that don’t think about elections ‘til the last second. We see all these ads and we look at polls, but there’s a lot of people in this country that are paying attention to other things,” Winters said in a phone interview from the campus of University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg. “If somebody’s moved to a different apartment, maybe they’ve changed cities for a job, same-day registration helps just make that really easy and available for those people to still have a say in our democracy.”
Winters declined to share how many people NextGen America has registered, but said Millenial and Gen Z voters are going to have a “huge voice” this year. This year’s turnout, he said, is stemming from the high-profile national election, and comes after the group’s work with young voters in 2023 ahead of Virginia’s pivotal General Assembly election where all 140 seats were on the ballot. The group did outreach in Blacksburg, home to Virginia Tech, and the Hampton Roads area, which hosts several universities including Norfolk State and Christopher Newport universities.
“It just seems, generally, students are engaged,” Winters said.
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