To understand Haldane youths’ opinions on the 2024 presidential election, we invited our students to anonymously answer a google form about which candidate they would vote for if they were 18 on November 5th. We also asked if they plan on voting in future elections once eligible. Both polls received around 100 responses.
Aside from opinions on the candidates’ platforms, Haldane students also have varying feelings on the importance of voting.
The five 18-year-old seniors who have the option to cast their first vote in the 2024 election (Jayden Treloar, Amelia Scarpino, Elijah Mauricette, Nicole Perez, and Christian Fereirra) have stated that they will be doing so. Treloar shared that she is participating because “voting is a right that we, as Americans, need to protect”. Scarpino will be voting in the election for a similar reason, stating that she: “care[s] about the future of [her] country”. On both sides of the presidential election this year, personal rights are being debated, such as gun access and abortion. These topics are extremely relevant to our futures, Scarpino pointed out.
Treloar also acknowledged that, while she sees it as her duty as an American citizen to “preserve [the right to vote] by exercising that right”, many teenagers aren’t voting because they: “don’t see why they should contribute.”
Senior Christopher Coronel is one such teenager who feels this way. Although he is not 18 yet, he has expressed no interest in voting. “There is a … kind of lack of representation for minority groups… Politics isn’t about the people anymore,” Coronel said. For example, the Hispanic community is only 11.2% of Congress, while they make up 19.1% of Americans (USA Facts). Only 1 president has been a person of color, and we are yet to elect a female leader. This absence of diversity in our government may have the effect of discouraging voters, making many feel like their voice does not matter.
Others feel their vote is inconsequential for other reasons. Senior Aleksander Normae believes that the electoral college diminishes his vote. “The electoral college takes away the power from the individual vote,” Normae said. “You don’t matter unless you’re in the majority”. In most states (excluding Nebraska and Maine), all votes go towards the state’s most popular candidate, making minority votes virtually insignificant.
“I think local elections are far more important. The decisions directly affect you,” Normae also noted. Although local elections only have, on average, a 40% voter turnout (Pew Research Center), much lower than that of the presidential election, individual votes are significantly more important in the polls.
In addition to general voter apathy and dissatisfaction with the system, some are upset and uninterested in voting in this election specifically. According to our Haldane survey, four percent of students were uninterested in the 2024 election but plan on voting in the future.
Overall, the polls and interviews above demonstrate that Haldane students represent a diverse sample of opinions on the upcoming election. Because we are situated in the middle of both an extremely democratic state and a county which voted republican in 2016, Cold Spring remains a split political environment.