By Nick Gray

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At Maxwell Elementary School in Lexington where polls were stationed Tuesday, the voting line sprawled down the school’s main hallway during the last rush of voters.

The degree of cynicism for many voters was just as long.

UK economics senior Justin Henderson said he believes many high-profile races are between “the lesser of two evils.” But he was not allowing his cynicism to drive himself away from voting for each of the races on the ballot.

“I don’t like the views of (Democratic candidate) Alison Lundergan Grimes or (Republican Incumbent) Mitch McConnell, to be honest,” Henderson said. “It was more of what I wanted to see on a federal scale, just like I think everyone is paying attention to here.”

Henderson said the lines at Maxwell Elementary were longer than the lines he saw during the 2012 presidential general election. Several others who saw the lines around 5 p.m. decided that they were too long to wait and instead hopped back into their cars.

Rehabilitation studies graduate student Jamie Lee Van Ness, 26, had not seen a line of people waiting to vote that long in the eight years she has been voting.

Van Ness voted in the state of Kentucky for the first time after living in Wisconsin for the first 22 years of her life. She described politics in Wisconsin as a “north and south battle,” a much different landscape than in Kentucky.

“It’s very new to me because you’ll hear people who are completely toward one party or another,” Van Ness said. “I look at history and what they’re looking to accomplish, and that’s how I vote.”

Historically, younger voters do not turn out to the polls during non-presidential general elections. According to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, only about 23 percent of eligible young Americans voted (based on exit polls, number of ballots counted and population data). Van Ness said it is disappointing because voting for senators, congressmen and city officials is vital to younger people.

“I think young people should know that there is one type of group that they can vote for and that it can be private,” Van Ness said. “They should be involved in what affects them and they should know how it affects them. Like, student loans, for example, are important to people my age, and they need to know how that can be affected.”

Lexington and UK alumnus Megan Douthitt, 24, did not vote in the 2012 presidential election even though she had a candidate in mind who she backed. She said that voting is still a matter of selecting someone she did not completely agree with politically.

“I feel like I voted for the lesser of two evils,” Douthitt said. “I watched some of (Alison Lundergan Grimes’) speeches, and I did not understand why she did not reveal if she voted for (President Barack) Obama. It did not make sense. I wish this kind of stuff would change, but we have what we have.”

Numbers on voting by age groups will not be organized and publicly available for “some time”, according Lynn Zellen, the director of communication of the state’s secretary of state, Grimes.