How Voting Works

Emma Kate Bockelman, Reporter

Junior Hayden Couch sits in his living room watching the debate, contemplating who he would vote for in the final election if he could. He starts to realize that the voting process is a little complicated. It is not as simple as the candidate who gets the majority of the population’s vote wins.

“I would like it to be just the majority of votes in America, and that’s not how we’ve done it in the past. It would mess up the whole system that is already in place if we changed it,” Couch said.

The process starts with people registering to vote. The voter must get the voter registration form for their state and fill it out. The next step is to send the form in by the given deadline. The voter does not have to be eighteen by the deadline date, just by the day of voting. Once the voter is registered, they then go to a designated location and cast their vote.

“A lot of celebrities and YouTubers advertise the ‘go out and vote’ and give information about it. That’s mainly how I know about the beginning process,” junior Katelyn Capdeville said.

The system after citizens cast their vote is a little more complicated. Each state gets a certain number of votes depending on population. It is usually one electoral vote for every 565,166 people.

The citizens in each state are basically voting on how their own state will vote. If the majority of Arkansans vote Republican, then all six of Arkansas’s electoral votes will be cast toward the Republican candidate.

The problem with this is that the newly elected president could win more electoral votes, but lose the popular vote. The electoral vote comes from the electoral college. The popular vote is when the majority of Americans vote for a certain candidate. The losing candidate could have gotten the majority of the ballots cast for them, but the winning candidate wins by electoral votes, which is what really matters.

“In some ways, this process allows for more people to have a voice, but at the same time, it takes the real election power away from the people,” senior Josh Blount said.

The importance of voting varies from person to person. Debate coach Joel Brown believes it is very important for students to know and understand the process. One way he encourages young people to educate themselves is through the Internet by encouraging students to look up how the process works and gather information. Once they have the opportunity, Brown encourages them to go out and vote and gain experience and understanding through that.

“I think what young people forget is that they will be impacted by the end goal regardless, because especially in high school, they will be transitioning into the workforce or going to college and so the decisions of the people we elect make will impact them in the long run,” Brown said.