Editor’s Note: This is an editorial. Editorials do not reflect the view of all employees of The Collegian but instead represent a stance taken by The Collegian’s editorial board, which consists of the editor in chief, the content managing editor, the executive editor and other members of the editorial staff.
Dear readers,
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Eleven of the 20 members of The Collegian editorial staff are going to be casting their ballots in a presidential election for the first time this year.
We represent the 49.1% of people aged 18-24 registered to vote in the upcoming national elections, and we’ve been raised for the better half of our lives watching disillusion and distrust in the political system. We need to vote and see if we’re really the promised solution to the problems of the world that prior generations keep assuring us we are.
If you’re older than 18 years old, you’re part of the 244 million Americans eligible to vote in 2024. It doesn’t matter if you’re a political science student obsessed with the electoral process, knee-deep studying demographics and statistics as they pertain to this election, or someone whose civic engagement education doesn’t extend past an elementary school civics class. The entirety of this election matters, and exercising democratic rights is an incredibly important part of being an American.
We’ve all been inundated with information about this national election for the last four years, but the most important part of the civic process isn’t who you vote for in the presidential election — it’s just as much about the rest of the ballot, the local issues, the state representatives and the amendments up for our determination.
The entire ballot is important, and students are doing a disservice to the civic process by only bubbling in who they want to be president.
Local elections and smaller forms of democracy are where our voices are most heard. They’re where real change can be enacted, and because of our federalist system, they are where policies and changes can be most acutely felt.
Not to minimize the weight and gravity of the upcoming presidential election — trust us, we all know it’s one of the most important ones to date — but we would be remiss as a generation to not consider and educate ourselves on policies and candidates at the local and state levels. Their names might not be as well known as the flashy presidential candidates and their large reputations, but they will represent whatever values we deem most important.
As ballots begin to reach our mailboxes and the cycle of political advertisements begins to gain steam, we implore you to crack open the blue books mailed to each of us containing voting information, and we also implore you to sit down with this Collegian edition and learn more about the candidates and issues up for election. We also ask you to be aware of ways you can engage civically, even if voting may not be possible. There is a wealth of information out there, and your voice matters.
CSU has many voting resources in place to make casting your ballot — whether this is your first or one of many — as easy as possible. A Colorado ballot drop box will be located outside the north entrance to the Lory Student Center from Oct. 21 to Nov. 5, and an in-person Voter Service and Polling Center will be set up in the Never No Summer room from Oct. 21 to Nov. 5 as well.
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The best way to safeguard our future and protect our democracy is by casting your ballots this November for all issues and offices presented.
With that, we invite you to read and absorb this deep dive into democracy and civic engagement in Fort Collins and Larimer County.
Happy voting!
The Collegian editorial staff
