Election Season is Approaching: Get Ready to Vote!
Jasper Everingham | September 22, 2022
Callie Aerni
It’s election season again, and with that comes many questions about when, where and how to vote. In order to vote, one has to be registered. The deadline to fill out a North Carolina voter registration form for this year’s midterm elections is Oct. 14. Other states may have different requirements.
Each state’s registration process is different, but in order to be a registered voter in the state of North Carolina, there are four criteria that WWC students need to meet.
The first is that only U.S. citizens (including dual citizens) can vote. Second, one must be 18 years old or older by the date of the next general election to be eligible to vote, although it is possible to pre-register as early as 16. Third, in order to vote, one must have resided in the county where they are registering for at least 30 days prior to the date of the election, which in this case is Nov. 8. The date 30 days prior to Nov. 8 is Oct. 10.
Warren Wilson College (WWC) students from outside of Buncombe County are eligible to vote either in Buncombe county using their WWC address, or in the county they are originally from by using their permanent address. This gives them the relatively unique position of being eligible to vote in their choice of two places, noted Madeline Wadley, associate director of community engagement at WWC.
“Being strategic about where you vote is something that is kind of special to college students because you do have a choice,” Wadley said. “Making sure that you're using that effectively is important. If you're wanting to vote and you have not registered to vote here, you'll be registering with your dorm address, which can sometimes be a confusing process.”
Wadley said that it is important to note that a student’s dorm address and their mailing address are two different things and that most students don’t know their actual dorm address. WWC has a partnership with the organization TurboVote to help students find their exact addresses.
Students who want to vote in their home state or county should check their state’s voting requirements, as voting laws differ from state to state.
Luci Hittle — a first-year student at WWC who is registered to vote in their home state of Ohio — said that it was a “really easy process” to register in her state, describing the application as “pretty painless.” They said they were excited to be able to vote in the upcoming election, and to be able to vote in their home state from college.
“I think it's a really special thing when we turn 18 that we have some say in what happens in our state and in our country,” Hittle said. “I personally feel that we're not participating in being citizens of the United States if we're not participating in that democracy — if we're not using our voice to vote.”
Ben Feinberg, a cultural anthropology professor at WWC, said that the process of registering to vote and of voting is easy in North Carolina as well.
“North Carolina still has a system where you can vote two weeks before [the election],” Feinberg said. “It's really good. I always vote early, it's very easy. There's never a wait, there's never a line. There might be a little bit more of a line on election day, but it’s not really that bad here.”
Continuing in that effort to make voting as smooth of a process as possible, Mia Thompson and Flynn Meharg — two members of the Bonner Leaders Crew — spoke about Bonner’s role in facilitating voting at WWC.
“We're trying to make it as fun as possible,” Thompson said. “We have pamphlets and stuff that we're getting ready to pass out or hang up or on campus. Tabling — probably bi-weekly — is the plan for now.”
“On Oct. 30, we're planning on doing a Halloween-themed early voting,” Meharg said. “Come in costume, and we will take you to go early vote.”
However, knowing how to vote and actually going to the polls are two different things.
“I think, right now, there's a lot of the mentality of like, your vote doesn't do much, but it does,” Meharg said. “If everyone has the mentality of ‘my vote does nothing, I'm not going to vote,’ then just not going to be an accurate reflection of what the general public actually wants. So even if you feel like it doesn't do a lot, please vote.”
Thompson also noted the importance of knowing who the candidates on the ballot are and knowing what kinds of legislation and policies they support. She said that knowing what “the people that we're voting for [are] voting for,” is critical to being an educated voter.
A link to a sample ballot for the 2022 Midterm elections in Buncombe County can be found here.