First-time Presidential Voters Weigh in on Their Voting Decision

For many undergraduate students at Point Loma Nazarene University, Nov. 5  will be their first time voting in a national presidential election. 

Campus initiatives working to encourage students to vote included advertising of PLNU’s participation in the Ballot Bowl Competition through campus-wide emails and a booth administered by the Office of Community Life outside of the cafeteria offering voter registration information.

Jonathon Raditsas, second-year journalism major, is a Navy veteran, deployed from 2019 to 2023. During that time, although given a mail-in ballot, he said he never voted. Now, as a 24-year-old, this will be the first time he’s cast a ballot.

“I guess I never really felt like I had really established my own opinions and beliefs thoroughly enough to be like, alright, I have an idea of how to vote,” Raditsas said. “So, I never really felt that it would be worth it. I wanted to put my name for something I would at least believe or think that way. Where I’m at now, I feel like maybe it’s not that serious and putting your voice out there is more important than not.”

Other students expressed that the prospect of voting has been an exciting one. Abbey Wicks, a fourth-year journalism student, said that particular issues such as women’s healthcare and LGBTQIA+ rights are pushing her to the polls.

“I remember feeling so passionate about the last election in 2020 and it was just super disappointing that I couldn’t participate in the election, and so I was really excited to be able to vote this time around,” Wicks said. 

Voting for her, she said, is a way to translate her passion into action.

Some women on campus expressed that their politics feel intertwined with their gender.

“I mean, I think about our history, and I think about being a woman. I think about being an African American woman,” Rahni Reed, third-year child development major said. “I think about how so many people have fought for the right to vote just to be able to share their voice, to share their perspective. And I just feel like it’s really important.”

This sentiment of excitement around female representation in the oval office was shared by first-year psychology major Annika Schramm, voting out of Minnesota.

“I think I really am drawn toward the idea of a female president,” Schramm said. “I really like that. And women’s rights are super important to me. Also, Trump has just not shown that he’s a Christ-like man, he’s not a great guy. I don’t want him to be our leader. So I really like Kamala and Tim Walz, he’s the governor of Minnesota. … [I think] he’s a really, really great governor.”

Although, not all women on campus share this view of Vice President Harris. Grace Chaves, a second-year journalism student, voting out of Nevada, said her top issue of abortion isn’t represented to her liking by either candidate, but she is still choosing to vote.

“I don’t side with Kamala when it comes to what she has said about abortion,” Chaves said. “But also, [I] don’t fully agree with everything Trump has said either. I guess I kind of hold my own political beliefs when it comes to that. So, I definitely don’t feel entirely represented on this, because there are issues with both sides and everything.”

Dissatisfaction with the candidates caused Yasmin Martinez, first-year business management major, to shy away from participating in her first opportunity to vote. 

“I’m not a Democrat or Republican, and it was just too difficult to choose one. I didn’t want to contribute to any one of them,” Martinez said. 

Martinez said she sees herself voting in the future, however, at this point in her life, the effort to become educated on current politics seemed less pressing than what is going on in her daily life.

“[There are] a lot of social activities happening here, [like] homework and hanging out with friends. I feel like those things are not necessarily more important [than voting], but they are things that I can focus on more and understand more,” Martinez said.

Many students expressed their lack of knowledge on local politics and what will be on the ballot. Reed said, although voting is important to her, the actual process of registering, receiving a ballot and becoming educated on it is a lengthy endeavor.

“I figure that I would probably vote regardless, but I feel like it was kind of a matter of, ‘Oh shoot, I need to register,’  ‘Oh shoot, I need to get things ordered so that I can be able to vote.’ Because I can’t just go out and vote, I have to make sure everything is in order to be able to do that,” Reed said.

From the perspective of first-year accounting major Ross Stillman, the effort to register outweighs the impact he feels his vote would have made.

“I kind of forgot that I had to mail it, and it wasn’t the biggest deal to me, because Idaho isn’t exactly a swing state,” Stillman said. “I think it was more so because I didn’t feel like my vote would matter in Idaho at all. So I wasn’t going to go out of my way to vote, because I knew in the end, it wouldn’t really matter.”

However, while first-year environmental studies major Aliyah Crockett said she wasn’t sure her vote would make a difference in her Idaho county, it was still something she felt was important to do.

“I think that our politics are in a very kind of tipping point moment. And even though my [home] county is very intensely one side [of the political spectrum] that I am not, [voting] still felt like doing something,” Crockett said.

Those without a personal reason to vote referenced how motivation comes from how their choice will impact other citizens. Will Turk, a first-year graphic design student said this was his primary motivation in deciding to vote.

“I think it’s important to vote because I’ve talked to Lena at the Caf. If you know her, she works at the sandwich station, and just kind of hearing her story about immigrating here,” Turk said. “It’s just a real privilege that I think would be kind of ignorant to, I guess, not use my right to vote.”

Raditsas echoed this idea, as he said what opened him up to voting was expanding his perspective.

“I would say now that I’m looking more toward my own future, I guess I would say I care more about the future in general, and everybody’s future,” Raditsas said. “I’m just more considerate of the things that would affect me later on and people that I care about. I feel like that is what is motivating me now to be more informed and vote.”

While many students The Point spoke with expressed the desire to become more informed on the actual policies and platforms of the candidates, most said they still remain relatively uninformed. From Schramm’s perspective, it’s a byproduct of the campus culture encouraging passivity.

“[some students at] Point Loma, they have one path of life, and they haven’t really seen other ways of living. And I think Point Loma kind of furthers that at times,” Schramm said. “There’s not a lot of diversity here, it’s very clear, and it’s not going to challenge their minds, [or] the way they think. Usually, the culture doesn’t push back against that.”

In Wicks’ perspective, a lack of concrete understanding of policy lends itself to more harm when working to engage with politics.

“It affects students because they’re sort of encouraging these conversations on focusing on the very polarizing things that are happening and not informing students on actual policy or things that will be found on the ballot,” Wicks said. “I think that that can actually be pretty harmful to students voting for the first time.”