Voting Day

Tuesday, November 5th is the 60th presidential election. This year, voter turnout is projected to be lower. According to teacher Brian Pelkey, "Based upon what I've seen locally and heard nationally, I think it's a little bit lower in some of the states, but I think COVID increased the amount of participation for early voting."

Locally, early voting wait times have been at least an hour long. Pelkey noted, "I've been down to Hummel Park a couple different times, and the line's been two hours long."

Pelkey relates some of the low turnout to the repetitiveness of the candidates. "This is Trump's third election in a row, and I think people somewhat get tiresome of the same candidates being in there. And of course, Harris has the connection as Biden's Vice President, that it's just nothing new."

Pelkey also believes students with the opportunity to vote should do so, stating, "Democracy isn't a spectator sport. You have to get involved at some level, and some people get heavily involved. I was just talking about in my current problems classes the other day that the number of voters in 2008 everybody thought it was going to break the record for 18 to 24-year-olds, but it didn't, because Obama was so far ahead in the polls, a bunch of those 18 to 24-year-olds eligible vote that had participated in his campaign, didn't take the time to go vote. I think they should, if they're eligible to vote, they should register and participate and go vote."

Story by Reese Napier