With November comes the fall breeze, pumpkin spice lattes and everyone’s favorite, Election Day! The time of year where we get to use our voting rights is creeping up, and, as college students, it’s more important than ever that we vote — our voices are so much stronger than we know. Voting and the election process seems daunting, almost as if they try to make it as complicated as possible. Despite this, it’s crucial that we do our best to understand, research, and do our part to make our votes count!
Before we start, let’s make sure you’re registered! Enter your information here to check! If you still need to register, it’s a super simple and easy form to fill out — a simple form for a huge impact!
Being an out-of-state student makes this a little trickier. You can be a resident in two states, but only vote in one. It’s super easy to switch the state you choose to vote in, so if you change it now it’s not binding forever and can be changed further on. Whether you choose to keep voting in your hometown or Santa Barbara is up to you, just make sure you do it!
As you may know, the presidential election comes every four years, meaning this November there are smaller local policies and seats. For Santa Barbara this fall, there are currently no policies and positions up for election. However, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook! Local elections are still taking place around California, and for out-of-state students, maybe even in your hometown. To find out more about cities holding elections, click here! Make sure if you have a local election at home, you’re not missing election day on November 7th!
From here, we have a few options for actually submitting our votes. We can vote at polling sites, by mail, or drop boxes. Once you’re registered, you’ll get more details about receiving ballots for in-person voting options During Santa Barabra elections or bigger national elections, UCSB will have voting sites on campus, making it easy and efficient! They typically post these sites on this website, and should update it when we have an election coming up.
As college students, we have a community of active voices who have the ability to vote for students; no one will speak for us if we can’t speak for ourselves.
“One vote won’t matter, it’s okay if I don’t do it, right?” WRONG!! Young voters are highly underrepresented in voting numbers, but we have the ability to make such a big impact. In the 2022 midterm elections, it was found that 23% of eligible voters cast a ballot. This means that the majority of our generation is wasting our chance to advocate for change; we can’t complain about our current political state without casting our votes.
Gauchos Vote Coalition, a club on UCSB’s campus, is a great opportunity to gain experience within voting and can help to raise awareness for the importance of voting. Whether you attend an event, follow them on Instagram, or join the club, getting involved and supporting other clubs can help everyone get on the same page about voting. We can genuinely have a huge impact and voice our generation’s struggles, views, and obstacles. In our generation, we see these issues — tuition, gun control, discrimination — from a different point of view, a different perspective. We can change the state of our community and letting others vote for us is not how we are going to get there. Go vote, Gauchos!