First-time voters express excitement for election
When Jessica Evora cast her vote on Election Day, it was before many students were even awake.
‘My roommate woke me up at 5 in the morning to go vote,’ she said, ‘and there was actually a line at Drumlins. I couldn’t believe it.’
Evora was joined by hundreds of fellow Syracuse University students at the polls Tuesday during one of the most important election days in history. Throughout the day, students who were registered could vote at E.S. Bird Library, Toomey Abbott Towers or Drumlins Country Club.
Of the 974 votes recorded at Bird Library, the majority were cast by students.
Like many other SU students, Evora, a junior magazine journalism and information technology major, registered using her campus address instead of her home address. This allowed her to vote in person, instead of requesting an absentee ballot.
But not all students registered properly, and some were turned away at the polls. Chifra Sorbello, an elections inspector at Bird Library, said one of the problems she ran into was turning away students who weren’t registered to vote in Syracuse, but came to the polls anyway.
‘The issue is students are not informed to register here at school,’ Sorbello said. ‘A lot of them are from out of state and they think ‘OK, I live in Massachusetts, so I register there.’ But then they can’t vote, and they’re very disappointed because we’re turning them away.’
Despite this complication, many students managed to successfully cast their vote in person or through a mail-in absentee ballot.Karnishia Funderburk, a junior information technology major, registered at her permanent address in Washington, D.C., and cast her vote using an absentee ballot. Like many students, this was Funderburk’s first time voting.
‘At first I thought it was going to be confusing and hard, but it was actually a very easy process,’ Funderburk said. ‘I finished the ballot in three minutes.’
Regardless of the means, Funderburk said all her friends voted.
‘I don’t know one of my friends who hasn’t voted,’ she said. ‘It does show a lot of people care, and a lot of people are going out and voting. It’s really good that people are taking the initiative and persuading their friends to vote. I must’ve had 100 text messages today telling me to vote.’
Megan Merchant, a senior information technology management major, said her friends and family helped persuade her to vote this year.
‘I never really thought about voting, but I really wanted to this year,’ she said. ‘It was actually pretty easy, and it took me longer to get there than it actually did to vote.’
Evora agreed that the pressure from friends and family to vote helped make students care about this year’s election. Throughout the day, students checking Facebook may have seen the mass status updates. Updates said users were ‘getting out the vote for Barack Obama’ or ‘donating their status to John McCain.’
‘My roommate doesn’t use her status,’ Evora said, ‘but she had her status changed today.’
Published on November 4, 2008 at 12:00 pm
