This year’s presidential election is set to be one of the most important yet unorthodox in history. With the COVID-19 pandemic still affecting many businesses and American households, the manipulation of absentee ballots is expected to be a concern alongside in-person voting worries.
According to a daily chart on the New York Times website, there has been a 70% increase in COVID-19 cases across Connecticut in the past 14 days. Because of this, the Center for Disease Control put out specific guidelines for those voting as well as poll workers or any other employees in the buildings.
President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are the two main candidates for the upcoming election.
Trump and Biden, alongside their respective vice presidents Mike Pence and Kamala Harris, have been clashing since before their first in-person debate on Sept. 29. Their opposing views on topics like climate change and Roe v. Wade have garnered comments from both sides for the past couple of years.
“It’s easily the most important in recent memory I think,” said Steve Schmidt, a Hamden resident. “I think everyone should be voting, I wish there’d be 100% voter turnout in every election.”
“It’s incredibly crucial, right?” said Haktan Saylen, a junior political science and philosophy double major, in regards to the importance of this election. “You know, this is a very testing time for the American people, this will really show where the nation lies. Topics of social justice, the economy, how we respond to a pandemic. I would love to see what this voting implies, on both sides. Whether we keep the incumbent president or we invite Joe Biden into office. But I think this is a very interesting time period, and I think this is something that textbooks will definitely cover years from now.”
Many believe that the forefront of the election and the decisions of the future president highly revolve around American citizens’s lives and social structure.
“I think this election is extremely important for two reasons,” said Anya Grondalski, a first-year journalism and political science double major. “First, we’re talking about the rights and the liberties of people in minority populations. Considering the way that our president has handled these past four years I think that it’s really a matter of freedom on who we elect. And I also think that our climate is going down the drain and our planet is suffering and I think that if we have another four years of Donald Trump we’re not going to see the sunlight”
The opposing views on mail-in ballots has also been a large topic during debates. Trump doesn’t believe mail-in ballots are safe and because of this, Biden believes Trump is trying to suppress voters by shutting down mail-in ballots.
The general understanding shared among students of the Quinnipiac community is that while mail-in voting isn’t the best way, it’s acceptable for the conditions we’re currently living in.
“I don’t foresee any problems with it and I think it’s the best way for people to vote right now because it is hard to travel,” said Julia Delisse, a first-year law and society major. “If it weren’t a pandemic I would have gone home and voted because I do think that is more secure but I think absentee is the best option right now”
Howie Hawkins of the Green Party and Jo Jorgenson of the Libertarian Party are the other two presidential candidates.
Hawkins, a co-founder of the Green Party for the United States, is an American trade unionist and environmental activist from New York. He’s been a consistent Green Party candidate for New York governor in 2010, 2014 and 2018 and was also the first to campaign for the Green New Deal in 2010.
Jorgensen has a deep background in business and psychology. She was also the Libertarian Party Vice-Presidential Nominee with Harry Browne, Presidential nominee in the U.S. elections of 1996 and 2000, in the presidential election of 1996 and has served as Greenville County, South Carolina chair, state vice chair and national marketing director for the Libertarian Party.
The presidential election is on Nov. 3. Designated voting areas will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., but if the polls close while you are in line, you can stay to vote.
Voting requires either a state identification or some form of government issued identification. In order to vote in Connecticut you need to be a resident of Connecticut. You can find your local voting location through the office of the Secretary of State.
(Additional reporting by Yanni Tragellis)