Last year on Election Day, a line wrapped around outside of McNeely Hall as voters waited for their turn. This year, election judges sat and waited for voters to file in.
At McNeely Hall, where 4th ward, 6th precinct St. Paul elections were held, 219 people voted. Of the voters, 18 people were new registered voters. Eighty-five to 90 percent of new registered voters were students, said registration judge Richard Simmer.
But in last year’s election, 2,101 people voted at McNeely Hall and 845 people were registered on Election Day.
Simmer said that even though this year was not a president election year, the voter turnout should have been higher. He added that students may have been deterred from voting because they aren’t already registered.
Sophomore Tyler Petersen was one of the St. Thomas students who voted in the St. Paul election. He said he interned for Chris Coleman and voted for him.
“Every election is important,” Petersen said. “At least that’s what we are told.”
Head-election judge Christine Hansen said more students need to vote because students are affected by the outcome of this election.
“So many people take their right to vote for granted,” Hansen said. “Students can have a great deal of power.”
John Hershey, St. Thomas neighborhood liaison, said he didn’t think most students would be interested in this election.
“There wasn’t as much publicity for this election,” he said. “However, this election is important. Four school board members will be voted for, and the school board is vital.”
Tuesday’s elections were for mayor and four school board positions. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, a Democrat, was re-elected and beat out Eva Ng.
St. Paul voters also approved ranked-choice voting, which is also known as runoff voting. Minneapolis used rank-choice voting for the first time in Minneapolis’ Tuesday election.
Students’ response
Junior Kelly Bergeson said it is important for students to vote if they care about the schools in St. Paul and care for the city.
“It’s sad not many students have voted,” she said. “Maybe they don’t know about it. Students should want to vote.”
Bergeson said she was very interested in this election partly because she is an education major.
Senior Lauren Barnhart said she read about the election in the Bulletin Today.
“I believe in voting every time, whether it is an important election or not,” Barnhart said. “It is our duty as a citizen to vote.”
Rebekah Frank can be reached at rfrank@stthomas.edu
The problem is, a lot of us don’t live in St. Paul and didn’t grow up here, so we don’t know, or care, about different city officials and their policies. Last year was a presidential election , so OF COURSE a lot more people would have voted.
Thats an interesting point but I would have to say just another unworthy excuse. Regardless of if you are from St. Paul or not, its an election and it is important. Its interesting to say that ‘we’ don’t care about their policies when they have a direct affect on our daily lives. One example of this is the new law in St. Paul regarding how many non-family members can live in one house. For the abundance of students that move off campus at St. Thomas, this is a huge issue. The internet is a powerful tool and within 5 minutes you are able to find out about city officials and their policies. The presidential election was important but so are these off-year elections.
Firstly, how DARE you call my excuse unworthy?! haha
secondly, I’m not arguing with you. That’s all these comment sections ever become, just huge arguments. I’m out