Nearly Half Of NYU Students Won’t Vote In Midterms, WSN Poll Finds
Despite the efforts of the NYU Votes campaign to increase student voter turnout, many students who are eligible to vote have chosen not to cast their ballots in the midterm elections.
(Samson Tu via Washington Square News)
by Adrianna Nehme
This story was originally published on New York University’s Washington Square News.
NYU senior Jazmine Ulloa is one of many students who has decided to not vote in this year’s midterm elections on Tuesday, Nov. 8. WSN talked to 103 students who are eligible to vote about whether they planned on casting their ballots in the midterm elections — 27.2% said they had already voted, 26.2% were preparing to and 46.6% did not plan to at all.
“I’m just not into politics,” Ulloa said. “I’m not really aware of anything that’s going on. I’m not aware of who’s running.”
In previous midterm elections, NYU has seen low voter turnout campuswide. In 2018, university administrators, faculty members and students created NYU Votes, a campaign that encourages students to cast their ballots by emphasizing the importance of each vote through events and university communications.
The voting rate among NYU’s student body has increased over the last several years, rising from 9% in 2014 to 37% in 2018. Jason Hollander, the co-director of NYU Votes, said that the campaign’s goal this year was to motivate even more students to cast their ballots.
“What a lot of people don’t know is that the results of the midterm elections and issues at stake will impact their lives more than a presidential election,” Hollander said. “I’m hoping that this year, we see the 37% move further up.”
Read the rest of the story at Washington Square News.