Students need motivation to vote?

~ Samantha Allen

When Freud spoke about the group mentality, he probably didn’t consider how it could be involved in political voting.

At the Tompkins County voting center set up at Ithaca College’s Circles Community Building, many students came to vote but often in groups.

Linda McBride, Ithaca resident and election inspector, said she had seen a lot of students coming into the building in groups.
Sara Gurman, a freshman who voted for her first time here at the community building, said she wanted her friends to be there for support.

“We’re all sort of new to this, and without my friends this would be intimidating,” Gurman said. She was accompanied by two other freshman, one of whom had voted previously in an absentee ballot for New Jersey.

In this video, IC freshman Sara Gurman and Natasha Petersen:


To find out why students like Gurman thought they needed support for voting on IC's campus, check here.


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McBride said that people were very excited and she had seen a lot of first time voters, including students and immigrants, who wanted friends there to photograph their first time pulling the lever.

“I think people are excited to vote,” she said. “I only wish that kind of excitement stayed with people because, that’s what’s democracy is all about. And, as exciting as this is, I wish it was the norm. But it’s not.”



McBride who said she has been working at the polls since 2002 said she has never seen anything as remarkable as the turnout for this election. She said at 8:15 p.m. that night, 74 percent of the registered voters had cast their vote.

Local students helping out from TCCC, Tompkins County Community College, said they were impressed by the turnout too. Daniel Pine, a student and election coordinator who has been working at the polls for the past three elections, said many senior citizens had actually showed up, something he had not witnessed in the past.

Jake Biles, another TCCC student and election inspector, estimated that over 500 out of 700 registered senior citizens had showed up.