“It’s incredibly important because elections are determined by the people who show up and vote, it may seem like it doesn’t matter who votes and that the outcomes will be the same but this last election shows how misguided that perception is.” This is the message Political Science teacher Jessica Gallucci, had for students at Chabot College with regards to registering to vote.
Gallucci offered possible reasons for people not voting, “I think that there are many reasons why people don’t vote, they don’t because they feel one vote won’t make a difference, people feel that the system is rigged.”
Gallucci continued, “People are unhappy with candidates, logistical differences in actually going out and voting, but I think that what we don’t understand is that certain populations are more likely to vote than others and those benefit more in the political process because they participate and that can be an eye-opening realization for folks and hopefully that motivates them.”
With the midterm elections coming up Tuesday, November 6. We asked students about the importance of voting and the impact it has.
Voting is important to students at Chabot. Most of the students asked, said they are registered to vote. Those few who aren’t registered said that people who are registered should vote because it impacts everyone in some form even if you might not realize it.
“Even if you don’t think it means anything, just know your vote counted in some way. It was tallied,” said Dee Collins, a student who is registered to vote.
Jessica Gallucci commented on students learning the importance of voting, “There are many places on campus where students are being exposed to the importance of voting in courses and extracurricular activities and hopefully we will continue to do this in the future.”
If you want to vote but didn’t get a chance to register by the deadline, the state of California must provide provisional ballots when asked, even if you didn’t register. Go to the California Secretary of State, Alex Padilla’s website for more information.