As the November presidential election approaches, many students will be 18 and able to vote for a presidential candidate. However, some don’t know how to register to vote, even though it’s one of the most important parts of being a citizen.
Corbin Ensminger works at the Pierce County Election Office, and says voting is essential for students.
“I’m the election supervisor, so my main role is overseeing our full-time staff, which we have 13 of, and then I do a lot of stuff with my boss, who is the elections manager, with planning, budgeting, hiring, extra hires, etc.,” Ensminger said.
A key focus of the office is reaching out to students, telling them how to register and where to vote.
“We recently hired a new position that we created specifically focused on voter education and outreach. This person, their whole job is to go out to various community events they focus on with younger voters, because those are the people that we see have the lower engagement,” Ensminger said. “We’re going to speak at high schools when they have their senior day, and [say], ‘Hey, here’s how you register to actually [vote].”
It’s not just high schoolers that they reach out to, as college students are another key demographic in elections.
“We work with the local universities here and colleges to do outreach events… and then we do something with the University of Washington Tacoma on election day, they have a student engagement hub. We provide their student staff paperwork for registered voters, print ballots off, etc. They’re there from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. for anyone who’s on campus there and needs to register to vote and get a ballot,” Ensminger said.
While some students may feel that voting doesn’t affect them much, it is still important to vote for who you believe is the better candidate, especially in local elections.
“It affects your life and your paycheck, right? I think that’s always something that made me interested when I was younger, all the taxes that come out tied back to voting, especially local elections, are important,” Ensminger said. “If you vote, you’re having your voice heard, and trying to get things the way you like them to be.”
Nowadays, there are online tools to help people with the voting process. Mail-in ballots have become increasingly popular, and websites allow people to make sure they’re registered to vote and track the status of their ballot.
“Our statewide website is vote.wa.gov, and you can go in there and then you can track your ballot status, so you can see if you need to mail your ballot back in, and then you want to look a few days later, see if it was accepted or not, and you can look up there and find it,” Ensminger said.
