With this year’s election season in full swing, CCE kicked off the ‘It Matters!’ program with an opening panel discussion, ‘Defending Voting Rights,’ co-sponsored by SSU’s HUB Cultural Center. ‘It Matters!’ is a program that encourages civic engagement and voter registration among SSU students and the Sonoma community alike, and attendees of ‘Defending Voting Rights’ were able to get their first look into the program’s educational bulk through the event. Resources, flyers, and a voting guide were provided to further help guide attendees of the event.
The panel consisted of four speakers: SSU professors Steve Estes (History) and Kim Hester-Williams (English), Deva Marie Proto, Clerk-Recorder-Assessor-Registrar of Sonoma County, and Monzerrat Morales of North Bay Organizing Project. The panelists answered audience-written questions inquiring about voting and civic participation.
Monzerrat Morales, and Kim Hester-Williams
discuss voting during ‘Defending Voting Rights.’
During the discussion, the speakers discussed SSU’s low turnout rate for student voters, while highlighting the lack of literacy in politics among voters. The latter issue can lead to potential voters struggling with navigating the voting process, which the speakers aimed to rectify in order to encourage voting participation and political understanding. Proto informed the audience that 124 different variations of ballots will be sent out to voters. 34 measures will be on the ballot, appealing to both state-wide and county-wide issues for local voters.
The speakers emphasized the importance of individual votes and community building, especially regarding down-ballot elections. Many people can overlook the significance of down-ballot voting and also feel as though their votes do not matter in the end. On the contrary, national and state-wide elections are only a sliver of the electoral process. For example, city council elections are heavily reliant on the vote of a single individual, which is a testament to why every vote really does matter.
Dr. Estes highlighted gerrymandering in his discussion, where he spoke in detail about the ways state legislatures draw boundaries for votes via re-centering in respective areas. Redistricting also occurs on a county level, which can affect the outcome of the election on not only a state-wide level, but also a national level.
The four panelists were eager to teach students the different ways of voter registration. As mentioned by the event speakers, students at SSU can vote by mail or in-person, located at the Casentino Room in Tuscany Village. Students can also vote alongside their parents in their respective cities or counties, and can also have their ballots mailed to them on campus. According to Proto, every registrar will send ballots to one’s county of residence for accurate counting, as long as they are postmarked on election day (November 5, 2024).
It was also crucial to advise attendees about the different ways they can participate in community building. The encouragement of dialogue is a must in this aspect, as it is important for students to assemble a board of people who are politically informed to help their peers in a bipartisan manner. Whether students can make one simple effort or put themselves out there entirely, it always makes a difference for the community to build power together, as opposed to lone, individual participation.