As early voting approaches for the 2016 presidential election, some young voters discuss their views on the candidates and issues that are important to them. At Georgia State University some male students give their perspectives on this upcoming election.
With Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton being the main candidates in this upcoming presidential election, they are creating a sense of urgency to get citizens registered to vote. Presidential elections have always been major turning points in the history of the United States. In the 2008 presidential election, 65.7 percent of females and 61.5 percent of males voted. The percentage of voting males in the United States has been low in past years. As a result, a segment of four Georgia State male students give their perspective about this upcoming election as the official presidential election will take place on Nov. 8, 2016.
Ben Kahen, a 21-year-old Georgia State junior is excited about voting for the first time. He plans to vote for the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson. (According to the Pew Research Center, in July 2016, Gary Johnson accounted for 22 percent of young voters).
“Donald Trump says some ridiculous things and Hillary Clinton has done some shaky things which make me a bit skeptical of them. However, I do enjoy the economic and libertarian viewpoints of Gary Johnson because they are very conservative,” says Kahen.
Throughout the Georgia State campus, a few male students are enthusiastically outspoken about this upcoming election and one student is deeply affected by it. Christopher Mitial, a 26-year-old senior from Haiti says that he will vote for the Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
“My family has emigrated from Haiti and Jill Stein is the first candidate to address the Hattian issues and Jill Stein is everything in real life that Hillary pretends to be on paper,” says Mitial.
“People aren’t doing their due diligence to find out what’s going on and people are not brave enough to vote outside of the Republican and Democratic parties,” says Mitial.
Sophomore student Masai Smith will not vote.
Masai Smith, a 19-year-old philosophy student says both Trump and Clinton are corrupt.
“I refuse to vote for either candidate because they do not represent my interest and do not uphold my moral standards of what I think a president should be,” says Smith.
Although they appear to be a minority, some Georgia State students support Trump. One fellow Georgia State student and a Trump supporter shares his perspective on the Republican candidate.
Harrison Elliott, a 22-year-old junior is a second-time voter says he likes Trump’s position on certain issues.
“I like Donald Trump’s stance on foreign policy and I also like what he says about creating jobs by building infrastructure,” says Elliott.
As the 2016 presidential election quickly approaches, some student voters have already made their minds up on which candidate they would will like see run the country for the next four years.
