Seniors get ready to vote

Anna Sanguinetti, Staff Writer| September 29, 2020

The Catalyst / photo via Genevieve Bencze

Genevieve smiles outside in front of a wooden fence.

It is a special year, as some seniors will be voting for the first time in the upcoming 2020 Presidential Election. Voting for the U.S 2020 Presidential Election starts November 3 in which registered voters can vote for the 59th quadrennial presidential term.

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I’m very excited because I have been looking forward to voting since the last election and am excited to finally be able to express my opinions and be more active in the political scene.

— Genevieve Bencze

Three seniors who are 18 and are planning on voting shared how they were feeling and what they are doing to prepare.

NDB senior Lucienne Nash told a story about her mom from the last election. She said, “she took me with her and she got me one of those stickers that says ‘future voter’” and then had put the sticker on her water bottle. She expressed how she was feeling excited because she felt “like it’s a way in which I can make an impact so it’s important to me.”

And as for ways of getting information on Lucie shared that one way was by watching some of the Democratic National Convention. She also stated that she is learning about the propositions through the current U.S Government assignment the class is working on. She plans on doing a mail in ballot which she signed up for when registering.

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Another NDB senior who is eligible to vote in this year’s election is Genevieve Bencze. “I’m very excited because I have been looking forward to voting since the last election and am excited to finally be able to express my opinions and be more active in the political scene,” said Bencze. In order to prepare she has been getting most of her information from social media because she is able to “see what the different candidates stand for and kind of compare and contrast and recognize the pros and cons of all candidates.” Since she has just turned 18 Genevieve is not completely sure if she is going to do a mail in ballot but will figure out her plan before the time comes.

Lastly, Satiene Fortenbach gave her responses. “It’s definitely an interesting one. But I’m definitely happy that I registered because definitely this year I feel like I wasn’t as informative and knowing just in general about politics and especially right now when we’re taking gov so I think it’s good and I’m excited. I’m happy” said Fortenbach.

“So I mean with my family really in general we’ve become more talkative in general just towards the subject of politics and some nights we’ll even eat dinner and watch the news so just kinda staying on what’s happening and then what the candidates are doing,” Fortenbach said. “I think when I registered I selected it to be mailed just for right now. But I think I’ll probably stick with it. Because I feel like in person during Covid just unfortunately I don’t think it’s the best idea.”

All three seniors featured in this article are registered to vote and are excited that they are able to vote in this election.

Jonathan Tomczak, Chair of the NDB History Department, provided his own insight and opinions. “Yeah, I love election season whether it’s looking at poll data or anything I’m all about it,” said Tomczak. “So this is one of my favorite times because there’s a lot going on. But I’m excited. I’m excited to vote.”

Tomczak also added, “Voting is incredibly important and the more people that do it, especially the younger people like high school students the better off things would be. And so as you can kinda see over my shoulder I have the website to register in California (points to the background of his screen where there is an image of his classroom and on the whiteboard it says “Registertovote.ca.gov If 18: Register if 16 or 17 Pre-register) I bring it up all the time. I talk about all the benefits of voting and what not so I talk about different things on the ballot. I encourage as much as possible.”

In addition to sharing his general feelings about the election, he also answered whether or not as an individual he thinks his vote has an impact. “In California there are 12 different proposed laws that are going to be voted on this year,” said Tomczak. “San Mateo County is electing a new state senator for the state legislature. So that’s gonna matter. Every vote is gonna count there to say nothing of local city issues and everything. So every vote everywhere matters.”

Tomczak ended by saying, “If you care about other people, you want to make things better, one of the most directly impactful ways you can do that is by voting which is why everyone should go to registertovote.ca.gov and vote and register now.”