Buffs Q&A with the dean of students: The importance of voting
With midterm elections coming up quickly, I sat down with Rachel Hill, CUSG internal tri-executive, Lucie Nguyen, CUSG student affairs tri-executive, and Sawyer Bundgaard, CUSG chief of staff, to talk about voting. We had a great conversation about the influence that college students can have on elections, how to encourage peers to vote and more.
Here are some takeaways from our conversation and voting resources to help you prepare for upcoming elections.
Q: Why do you think voting is important?
Rachel: Voting is a way that you could have your voice heard and I think a lot of times that's the easiest way for people to get civically involved. Most people don't go to their legislators, they don't write to members of Congress, they don't testify, but they can make their voice heard through voting. I think a lot of people tend to think that their vote may not matter, except for maybe a presidential election. But voting I think does matter because there are a lot of cases in which you know several votes could sway decisions.
Lucie: I think voting is an actionable, physical thing that can result from conversations (...) There is a population of our student body who are action based, and all these philosophical conversations are not something they want to engage in. But at the end of the day they can see that it does matter, because they can take these conversations and make meaning of it for themselves, and do something with it by voting.
Sawyer: I think voting is really important because it is a right afforded to us. And I think it's important for people to recognize that voting in and of itself is not political, but we should all engage in the process because it is something that we currently have and that we should enjoy.
Q: Your own CUSG campaign was a close one. What did you learn in that experience that you would want future voters to know?
Rachel: We were able to get votes from people who had no idea what was going on. I would say that a good portion of the student body has no idea what CUSG is, what we do or the impact that we have. During our campaign, for example, I'd walk up to someone in the Engineering Center and I would ask, ‘Hey, have you voted for student government?’ And they’d ask, ‘What is that?’ Or a lot of the times we’d go up to grad students and they’d say, ‘We're grad students, we can't vote in your election.’ And I’d be like, ‘Yes you can, you’re our constituents too!’ I wish more students knew that they could actually have a real impact. Your vote matters, and it could really be the difference between a ticket that you really support and a ticket that you don't.
Sawyer: It's important to recognize the significance of connecting to the person that you are voting for. I think all too often people just go out and vote and usually it's just party line voting, where you just vote in favor of whatever party you generally side with. But I think there's a much deeper element to it. When we were on the campaign trail, I found oftentimes people would just vote for the most recent name they’ve heard but wouldn't get involved by either reaching out to the candidates or looking into what they actually stand for. I think it's important for students to know that voting transcends any sort of political barrier, and that you should be invested in what the objectives of different candidates and parties are, rather than just voting for what you've always voted for.
Lucie: I would want people to know that some of these people that are potentially running in all these elections, that they're people who have degrees, who are passionate and have ideas and want to create change. So, instead of just brushing it off, just show that you care (...) If you look at our cabinet right now, all the people that we were able to give an opportunity to have done some amazing things. If another ticket had won, it would be a different group of people doing different amazing things. Regardless of which ticket people voted for I want voters to be aware that we’re all human and to be kind to one another.
Q: I helped out with a political campaign once, and the political process is very difficult. It’s incredibly important as a voter to do your research and show up to vote, and there’s so much you can do to get something onto a ballot to influence the future of local and national politics.
Lucie: Our PRISM idea, one of our biggest projects that we’re really pushing for, came to me a week before voting started. It wasn’t an idea that we had before we even started this campaign—this was a student idea that was given to us and I think that's powerful. Voters do shape the way candidates think. I think what makes a good candidate are people who are there to help drive voters’ ideas.
Rachel: I think a lot of people underestimate the power they can have on legislators. Throughout my time as a tri-exec, I've had several meetings with state legislators, and they're so receptive to the change we want to make. That ties back to voting because we have the choice to vote for someone in office who is going to listen to us and who we think is going to value our ideas. I think more often than not those people do value their constituents’ ideas. They do listen and do have the potential to have their minds changed by their constituents.
Q: What power do you think that the traditional college-age voting block has (18-24 year olds)?
Rachel: I'd say a lot of power. I mean we've seen in recent federal elections that Gen Z or college students represented a large portion of voters. We could compare it to previous elections in the early 2000s, when that voting block underperformed. Now this generation is really performing at the ballot box and even CU students are doing a good job at that too. I think they have power because elected officials are now looking at issues that impact students.
Sawyer: I think now more than ever students are beginning to realize that voting is not a guarantee. I think the advantage of general college-aged students is they have an opportunity to learn about voting and learn about how much they can influence (...) As voting becomes harder in many parts of the country, I think that students now more than ever are going to be getting out and voting because they know that this right is not a guarantee, it's a privilege. And you have to act on it while you can.
Q: What strategies do you use to encourage your peers to vote?
Rachel: One thing CUSG is doing is we have now launched a Vote 2022 tab on our website. It’s going to have different ballot initiatives that are on the local Boulder ballot. We hope to inspire some students to vote or at least look into the issues because a lot of them are pretty nuanced, you’ll need to really look into them. Also, a lot of the issues on the ballot this year are not just along party lines, they're actually really interesting and two sided.
Lucie: One of the things that drove me and my friends to vote was one of the big newspapers had a fun interactive page with candidates. It showed every single candidate that was running, and then you could click on them and click on certain policies that you were interested in, and it would give you a side-by-side comparison of candidates from the same or different parties. My political science brain thought it was fun. I don’t think it’s that people don’t want to vote, they just don't want to vote wrong. They'd rather not vote at all than vote for the wrong candidate. It can be hard to find information about candidates if you're normally not involved in politics because there’s so much out there.
Q: If you could give a fellow Buff one takeaway to convince them to vote, what would that be?
Rachel: I would say in Colorado, you lose nothing by voting. There is no opportunity cost. It's so easy to vote—you can get your ballot sent right to you, you can mail it back or drop it off, you have a drop-off box on campus, you also have in-person voting on campus. Voting has the potential to make a really big impact, so in terms of total utility, the impact of voting is way greater than not voting.
Learn about how to vote, where to vote and more at ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ Election 2022 webpage.