Across Lexington, Kentucky students took a trip to the polls to cast their first vote in a presidential election.
The 2024 Presidential Race has shown nearly tied polls, according to the New York Times, throughout the past few months. Election Day is the final opportunity for voters to cast their ballots in person.
“I think voting is debatably the most important duty any citizen can do in the United States,” Transylvania University Student Body President Sean Gannon said.
This is the first presidential election Gannon has cast his vote in because he was not of voting age in the 2020 election. With the influx of young voters, Gannon wants to remind new voters that voting is done “more carefully” than people think.
“Don’t get scared. Your voice is heard,” Gannon said. “The system has been working for hundreds of years. It’s going to continue working for hundreds of years, and despite polarization and things like that, we’re all Americans.”
Only one polling location was on the University of Kentucky’s campus at the Holy Spirit Parish Catholic Newman Center, with several other locations close to campus.
UK senior Kaelan Davis, who is majoring in anthropology, said voting in person on Election Day felt like an important ritual.
“(It) feels more important to vote on Nov. 5, although I realize it’s probably not going to make a difference either way, no matter how I vote, but feels more substantial, especially considering that this election is monumental,” Davis said.
Davis voted in the 2020 election as well, saying it’s important to vote in every election.
“Gen Z has not voted very much in the past because they haven’t been necessarily of age, but I think now that more people are eligible to vote, I hope that they will, and if they do then it’s going to be great,” Davis said.
Poll worker Sheila Foy said the turnout for this Election Day is “amazing” compared to previous elections. Voters were lined up outside Maxwell Spanish Immersion Elementary School at 5:40 a.m., according to Foy.
There had already been around 200 voters at Maxwell Elementary before noon. Foy said that in previous elections, not even 100 people had come by the end of the day.
According to Foy, many young women had come out to the polls, saying that seeing them gave her hope in the election results.
Election Sheriff at the Lexington Traditional Magnet School, James Shields, said as of noon voter turnout had been “much higher” than in years past at this polling location as well.
Born in Lexington, Shields moved to Los Angeles as a child and recently returned to Kentucky where he has worked at the polls on Election Day for the past two years.
Shields said students and young voters have always played an important role in swaying the votes in elections and he predicts the impact to be “tremendous” in this election specifically.
Rick Brown has been an alternate poll worker “for five or six years,” going to spots where he’s told to fill in.
“This is awesome. I mean, we’ve had almost 250 (voters) and that’s 10 times more than what they normally get,” Brown said. “But the presidential has got a lot to do with it.”
Brown said the clerks have had few problems with not having to turn any voters away so far.
Kentucky paper ballots are fed into a machine where they are stored as a precaution in the chance of a recount being called, which Brown did not see as likely to happen.
“I think Kentucky does a good job with their safeguards,” Brown said.
The machines are equipped with a piece of hardware inside that keeps track of votes that workers can detach when the polls close for results, according to Brown.
This election, Brown’s daughter voted in her first presidential election.
“I think we’ve seen a lot of students today, and that might be because we’re close to campus right now … but my daughter is a freshman at UK,” Brown said. “So I think they (students) are seeing the impact that they need to get out.”
Billie Davenport has been working as an attorney for 37 years. Davenport said he feels that by being an attorney, it’s part of his civic duty to be a poll worker.
“If you want to have a democracy that actually functions, you’ve got to have people to work the polls and to keep them honest. So that’s why I do it,” he said.
Davenport, an alternate poll worker filling in at the Newman Center for the first time, said he was expecting a very large turnout.
“This has been much larger than most elections that I’ve worked,” Davenport said. “The turnout that we’ve had today has been bigger than any primary election, and at the way it’s going, I think the biggest presidential election I’ve ever worked.”
Davenport predicted the turnout in the Newman Center, which only one precinct was assigned to, to be more liberal due to the number of college students and professors in the area, who he said are usually more left-leaning.
His interactions with younger people throughout the day gave him hope for the future of young voters.
“We had one young gentleman who was waiting for us at a quarter to six to open the poll,” Davenport said. “He was our very first voter and he voted; 45 minutes later, he came back and brought us donuts.”
Lifetime Lexington resident Kirby Hall, 57, said he has voted in every election since he was of voting age. In every one of these elections, Hall voted at the same polling location: Lexington Traditional Magnet School.
He said the only thing that has changed is the door voters enter the school by, and the progress women have made over the years. Hall went on to say he feels that since 2016, the country has begun moving backward, but that he is voting to halt that regression.
“My mother raised me to care about everybody, and she’s passed now, but I’m voting for my daughters, both my sisters. I vote for my neighbors. My vote is for women in general, and everything else is a tomorrow problem,” Hall said. “We’ll work on it tomorrow.”
He said voters have a “big thing” on the ballot this year, alluding to voting to elect the 47th president of the United States.
“If we lose, we need to be gracious losers, and we win, gracious winners,” Hall said. “So it’s a life lesson for young people right now, and for all young people to come”
