Students aim to make voices heard as election day nears

As election day grows closer, USD political science students are gearing up for the big day and more students are starting to share their views on the topic.

When it comes to voter turnout, millennials don’t have the greatest track record. According to the US Census Bureau, “in every presidential election since 1964, young voters between the ages of 18 through 24 have consistently voted at lower rates that all other age groups.”

College Democrats and Republicans are hoping to change that.

President of College Democrats, Chelsea Gilbertson and President of College Republicans, Kade Lamberty were tabling in the Muenster University Center earlier this week to make sure students were registered to vote.

“As you can see here we’re kind of tabling together,” Lamberty said. “Today is the last day for voter registration so that’s one of the main things we’re doing. We also have the absentee ballots.”

Both Gilbertson and Lamberty said their groups, which both meet on Mondays at 8 p.m. have been focusing a lot on local elections, while still discussing the presidential election.

“At our College Republican meetings we have a lot of people come in that are either candidates or are talking about ballot initiative,” Lamberty said. “So we want to inform as many people about those issues that we can… but we still talk about Trump, people love talking about Donald Trump, they just love it.”

Gilbertson said the College Democrats have also been talking about ballot initiatives.

“Basically we’ve been focusing on predominantly the ballot initiatives because there are a ton of them,” Gilbertson said.

While the focus has been on local issues, the groups still worry about the outcome of the presidential election.

“There’s a lot of (talk on) how did we get to this point. In complete honesty, we’ve talked a lot about how disenfranchised a lot of voters feel,” she said. “Especially since most College Democrats my age were very pro-Bernie and so I’ve been trying to shift that into a bigger conversation on what can we do to change the way future elections will be played out.”

Bernie Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, announced his candidacy for the Democratic ticket in April of last year and energized young voters with a message of economic change. He was eventually defeated by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, despite an email scandal that continues to plague her campaign.

Lamberty also said that Trump taking the candidacy is driving people to join their organization.

“Actually Donald Trump and kind of the whole mystique around has really drove a kind of membership in College Republicans and that is really what we talk about if we don’t have guests,” Lamberty said. “That’s what we talk about most of the time, what happened during the primaries what’s happening in the election and kind of what she said, how we got to this point. The most unassumed candidate of all time, Donald Trump got the candidacy.”

Donald Trump, who announced his candidacy in June of last year, shocked long-time politicos and analysts alike by beating out a field of more than 10 other Republican candidates to clench his party’s nomination. Since then, he’s made headlines for his comments on women, Muslims, Mexicans and other groups. After a video surfaced earlier this month of Trump making lewd comments about women that he deemed “locker room talk,” some prominent Republicans, such as South Dakota Senator John Thune, have called on the real-estate mogul to withdraw from the race and let his Vice Presidential pick Mike Pence take over the ticket.

Political science juniors Anna Madsen and Chesney Garnos said they think it’s a very exciting time to be a political science major but are disappointed with the candidates.

“I am really disappointed in both candidates we have to choose from,” Garnos said. “It’s hard because neither candidate has my morals or values. I can’t trust Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. The theatrics are distracting from actual issues. I want to hear them talk about policy.”

Madsen touched on how theatrical the election has become.

“It’s turned into a reality TV show,” she said. “But I honestly think millennials are paying attention to this election more than they would in a normal, or to be frank, a boring election compared to this. It really has just come down to the lesser of two evils, which is really sad.”

Garnos added that what worries her most is some of the decisions that whoever gets elected will make.

“Another thing to take into consideration is the supreme court members,” she said. “This election won’t just affect us now but many generations to come because the next president could appoint one to four new judges.”

But Gilbertson and Lamberty said there is still hope for political change.

Both groups are hosting meetings every Monday night up until election night and are encouraging members to be active in local campaigns. They also plan on having post election parties.

“It can only get better from here on out. I think we can both agree.” Gilbertson said. “Now more than ever is the time to focus on local politics because that’s where the real change starts. So I tell people, ‘Oh you don’t like Donald Trump, well vote in the people that are not going to vote for him.’ We could start all of that here but you have to be active. As great as it is to just go out and vote there is so much more that you can do…so go out and vote.”