The 2024 Presidential Election and its results have recently been a hot media topic after Donald Trump won by popular vote. Voting is an important decision that can affect the United States, but do young voters know how to submit their ballots? The fresh 18-year-olds must know how to cast their ballots into important national decisions.
The actual election results, finalized on the night of Nov. 5, 2024, showed Trump winning by 312 electoral votes and 50.1% of the popular votes while Harris lost by 226 and 48.1% of the popular votes.
There are two different ways to submit or turn in a ballot. Voters receive physical copies of ballots that they can mail, which are automatically sent to those registered to vote in each state. Voters may also go to a local ballot drop-off using that same physical copy. The nearest polling location in Long Beach is at California State University of Long Beach (CSULB).
Ashley Lopez, a political correspondent for NPR, states in “Mail voting is still pretty popular,” an article from July of 2023, “The agency found that 31.9% of voters who cast a ballot in 2022 did so by mail. According to the survey, almost half of all voters in 2022 voted in person on Election Day.” Based on each election year, both are equal when it comes to voting by mail or in person.
When asked about the preparation of first-time voters here at Millikan, Ms. Boyd, the Government and Economics teacher for COMPASS seniors says, “Here at Millikan, the History Department does a good job preparing first-time voters to cast their votes. In the Fall, on the National Voter Registration Day, the Registrar’s Office gives a presentation to our classes about when elections are being held and the registration process.”
Mari Lu, a senior in COMPASS, says that although she intends to vote, she does not know how to vote. “A lot of kids did dual enrollment like me, so they don’t have a government class.” She goes on to say that most of her information on how to vote came from social media.
On Nov. 6, 2024, Harris announced her defeat by giving a speech to her Instagram followers, stating her loss but reassuring them that this was not why she gave up.
In the same post Harris states, “Earlier today, I spoke with President-elect Trump and congratulated him on his victory. I also told him that we will help him and his team with their transition and that we will engage in a peaceful transfer of power.”
It is vital that young and first-time voters are prepared and well-informed about the voting process and about what resources are available for them.
For more information about how to vote in California, click here.
Sebastian Sachs • Jan 15, 2025 at 1:47 pm
What I especially liked about this article was the fact that the author was not afraid to express any political standpoints of the students that roam around Millikan, asking them for their opinions on voting, along with if they planned to.
One other thing that stood out to me was the inclusion of the words of the loser-candidate, Kamala Harris, after she realized that the election was in the favor of the former president Donald Trump, who is now going to serve his second term in office, though separated by one administration.
Lastly, the inclusion of the message at the end of the article, telling freshly-turned 18-year-olds that it is vital that they know how to vote was a very important final touch added to the article. Not only is it necessary for these 18-year-olds to learn how to vote, but the future may just depend on them. Knowing how to vote is a civic duty, and it must be learned in the same vain as learning how to walk. It becomes a very critical part of everyone’s lives after they turn 18, and not knowing how to vote might just be one of the worst weaknesses that the future may hold for new generations. Many thanks for including the link that includes information on how to vote, as it is the defining factor between 50.1% and 48.1%.
Cienna Rydman • Jan 14, 2025 at 1:56 pm
This article does an excellent job in providing information on how to vote as an adult high school senior. It displays many resources and places to get your information around the community, even attaching some to the article itself. Furthermore, Barth does a great job in transitioning this year’s election results into the importance of the next generation of voters putting their vote out there. Barth does an outstanding job in finding data and sources around campus to back up her thesis of this article. She uses a variety of interviewees such as teachers and students around our campus to add additional ways to vote into her article. It is impressive how Barth uses the American flag as a symbol of this article, symbolizing that everyone in America should be able to have the resources and access to have representation in these election results.
Bath’s article is structured very well, starting with the election results from this past year, and ending with additional links and information to get Millikan students to cast their vote in the next election. However, I think that this article could be titled differently. Instead of “Election Results”, this article should be something about the rising seniors on campus accessing resources and how they cast their vote. I believe that because the article only mentions the election results once, and the rest of the article is explaining how students around campus should prepare to vote in the next election.
This article does a great job in presenting information to students and informing them about the political side of voting. Barth seems to portray the article into more of a resource page, allowing the students to be informed as they choose. This article concludes on a positive note, stating that there is organization and promise in our government, which is a nice change from most articles we read about this certain topic. All in all, this article might need to change its title, but provides easy access to information for our students on voting in future elections.
Owen Kaplinsky • Jan 14, 2025 at 1:23 pm
Dear Corydon Editor,
On January 10, 2025, Alisa Barth wrote an article titled “Election Results”. I like how you wrote about the article in a non-biased perspective. You wrote that on the night of November 5th, the election results were certified. I was wondering if this was accurate as the AP did not certify the election results until November 6th, 5:34 a.m. when the AP called Wisconsin and their 10 electoral votes for Trump, which officially meant he earned the 270 required electoral votes to win the election.
I also commend Alisa for her informative section on voting statistics and general voting knowledge for new voters. I agree that information on how to vote is vital for new adults, as the systems currently in place seem to be lacking with the amount of adults who are unaware of the democratic voting process. The link for more voting information for California is also useful.
Sincerely,
Owen Kaplinsky
Alanna Deegan • Jan 14, 2025 at 10:08 am
Barth did an excellent job at remaining neutral and presenting factual information from multiple viewpoints. They provide quotations from both elected candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. They also provided interviews from students around Millikan High School to obtain perspectives that may differ from that of a politician.
This article was proficient in multiple ways, one of which being the vast information it provided. For instance, the bulk of this article was about the different forms of voting, the most popular forms of voting, information emerging voters (specifically 18-year-olds) may need, as well as providing a link to the California voting website to urge readers to research further on their own.
When interviewing Millikan High School students, they were asked if they felt prepared to vote and conduct proper research on each candidate prior to voting. Many of them elaborated how the History Department here at Millikan High School very much prepared them for their first voting process, which relates to the audience in a subpar way.