This 2020 presidential election was the first election that Leslie Murillo, Daisy Garcia and Alexander Delperdang voted in.
Delperdang, a music student, said, “I was definitely excited [to vote]. Mainly because I was very aggravated by the results of the last election and I didn’t have a chance to voice my own opinion.”
The three students followed candidates and propositions in order to be informed and make their votes count.
Garcia, LBCC student and soccer player, prepared her ballot a week before Election Day, “just to make sure that I knew about the propositions and who to elect into the house and districts. And once the election day came, I just dropped it off in a ballot drop off. It was pretty easy,” she said.
“It was pretty relaxed,” said Delperdang on his experience while voting.
He said,“I did early voting. I showed up on Thursday before Election Day, so there weren’t many people and it was kind of cool because they installed new devices to make voting easier.”
Murillo, psychology student, said, “I did my research. You receive a book and it says the pros and cons of each proposition so you just have to read it and choose.”
For these three first-time voters, it was a stressful time for them after Election Day, especially, with the delay of results.
Murillo said “You expect to know the results by November 3rd, and it [had] been a couple of days of not knowing what’s going to happen.”
“You are just waiting to see what every state votes and how they are still counting. The news outlets show people counting the votes and it’s so much,” Garcia said.
In this election, mail-in-ballots played a huge part for Joseph R. Biden’s victory, which became controversial due to the debate if they should be counted or not.
Garcia said “I think every vote counts, and they shouldn’t stop counting them.”
On the official announcement that Biden won the presidential election, Delperdang said, “I think Biden winning is going to be good for the nation since he is someone who has great bipartisan relationships with many notable Republicans. This is a great day for the U.S. as a nation.”
Regarding future presidential elections, Murillo said “I am excited. I think I could be even more prepared and informed.”
Delperdang said that he is looking forward to every election in his life.
“I promised myself that I am going to vote in every election because I don’t want to take it for granted.”
