National election day was on Nov. 4. Like always, CMU had several locations where students could vote, with an official ballot drop box outside of the Moss Performing Arts Center.
Mesa County set up a polling station in room 213 of the University Center (UC) on Nov. 3 and 4.
Election staff in the UC helped students and Mesa County residents fill out their ballots and took them to be counted after voters finished filling them out.
This year, the local election topics in Mesa County centered around the Mesa County Valley District 51 (D51) school board.
Some voters expressed passionate emotions about the D51 election.
“Not only have students [in District 51] not been as supported as they could be, but, our actual district employees, honestly, they are being fought against,” freshman social sciences major Karlee Pool said. “They had their MVEA meetings and their union stuff going on this year, and that was a really difficult process, both for the school board and for teachers across the valley.”
There were only two ballot measures: propositions LL and MM. Both addressed the use of state funding for free student school lunches across Colorado through a tax increase on residents that make over $300,000 per year.
“I felt mostly supported. I was impoverished for most of my childhood so that added a struggle, but I was supported through that by the school district,” Pool said in regard to the propositions’ impacts.
However, the school board elections received particular attention this year from students at the voting booth, with tensions between some D51 school board candidates, district employees and teachers rising over the past few years.
“This is one of the more important elections for both students and teachers because having a supportive school board is so important for everyone, not even just students and teachers, but for everyone as a whole, ‘cause the kids are our future,” Pool said.
Students also noted the importance of multiple small-scale elections nationwide.
“Something I personally really value is being involved in every area and voting is the way to have [a] more supported government, I think,” Pool said. “If everyone puts in their voice, if everyone puts in their opinions and their thoughts into how our city and how our district and all of that, if we all collectively participate in that process, I think our voices will be heard, and we will be represented, and we will make a lot of progress.”
Many students reported feeling a ripple effect after mayor-elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani’s successful mayoral campaign. Even though it was in another state, Colorado voters and election volunteers still stressed the importance of all local elections.
“I really enjoy voting in local elections because I feel like it has a more immediate effect on my day-to-day life. This is my community. These are the people that I live with, you know? It’s a lot more, like, influential in the immediate term versus, like, federal elections and things of that nature,” Pool said. “It’s participating in your community.”
At the UC 213 polling station, security and election staff helped voters get their ballots and gave information about candidates and propositions.
Staff had small tabletop voting booths set up so that voters could cast their votes in privacy. The mail-in ballot box outside of Moss Performing Arts Center also saw people driving through the drop off loop in front of the building intermittently to place their ballots into the slot.
“All politics is local,” Site Supervisor for CMU Cindy Orr said when asked about the importance of local elections and having access to multiple voting sites.
She worked at the voting booth for CMU for the first time this year.
“This is my first year as site supervisor at CMU. I’ve done other election locations though,” Orr said.
Mesa County saw a 44% voter turnout, nearly 20 points above the state’s average.
According to Colorado Newsline, only about 25% of the eligible voters in Colorado cast a vote.
“Ever since I became of age to vote, I have voted in every single election,” Pool said. “Honestly, I don’t really know anything different, because the first time I voted was 2018, and I feel that political tension was already pretty gnarly then, very similar to the way that it is now, so, I don’t know, it feels good.”
