Downtown Arizona State University students have mixed emotions about the outcome of the presidential election and how their votes were counted.
In an election of many milestones—the first female and woman of color to be elected Vice President, the oldest president elect and one of the largest voter turnouts in history—ASU students at the downtown Phoenix campus are not all on the same page.
Voter fraud, something President Donald Trump has insisted tampered with the election, is a topic of much controversy throughout the country and a concern for many Republican voters with the increased use of mail-in ballots.
RELATED: PHOTO: Trump supporters protest at the Protect the Vote Rally
In a speech at the White House in the early morning on Nov. 4, Trump prematurely claimed victory, also saying he would go to the Supreme Court due to a scammed election while votes were still being counted.
Republican Daniel Navarro, Marine veteran and third-year criminal justice student, said he did not agree with the president when he stated he won the election, even though it hadn’t been called yet.
“I think, like anything else he says, his rhetoric is very out there in the past almost four years,” Navarro said. “If there is any fraud, I don’t think it’s to the level he’s saying it is.”
After voting in-person on the Friday before election day, Navarro said he has no doubt that his vote was counted accurately.
“I feel that the fact that I went in person, I got to scan my driver’s license, I got to fill out my ballot then and there, see them seal the ballot and then turn it in gave me confidence that my vote was fairly counted,” Navarro said.
But Republican Hannah Rater, a fourth-year nutrition student, is not so sure that her vote was processed fairly. She said that because she voted by mail-in ballot in Pennsylvania, there is an increased possibility of voter fraud.
“No matter who anybody voted for, I think that we’re in this country and the biggest thing about being in America is that you have, or should have, equal opportunities,” Rater said. “The fact that the election was skewed, no matter who voted for Biden or Trump, it still wasn’t fair.”
Rater said that she thinks a recount should be necessary in the swing states because that is where the most voter fraud occurred. She also said President Trump’s claim to go to the Supreme Court was warranted because “he knew he was probably going to have to do that all along.”
Democrat and third-year criminal justice student Taylor Payne said her in-person voting experience was great because she was in and out of the poll in less than 15 minutes, and her vote and voice made the impact she wanted them to have.
Payne also said that she changed her voter registration to Arizona because she thought she could make more of a difference in a swing state, rather than her family’s red home state of Mississippi.
“I personally just don’t understand how you tell someone you love them and vote for someone who hurts them, as the Trump administration has done,” Payne said. “So to vote for a campaign that I feel really provides hope, and to see that campaign win and show that the American people are also on-board, I find really great for the future of our country.”
For Democrat and third-year nursing student Jordan Wehmuller, the Biden win is what she said the country needs after the last four years.
“I think that for the first time in a long time there was finally this realization that the views of our current president did not reflect the views of our up-and-coming generation,” Wehmuller said. “I think the views of President Trump very much reflected the views of the elderly, the Baby Boomer population.”
Wehmuller, who voted with a mail-in ballot for Colorado, does not think a nation-wide recount is necessary because she said the idea of voter fraud was “a last resort in order to falsify votes directed toward the (democratic) party.”
“Numbers are numbers,” Wehmuller said. “I think that no matter how many opinion-based allegations come forward, numbers do not lie, and I think Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States.”
After the election was called on Nov. 7, President-elect Joe Biden sent out a press release, saying that he was grateful for the support from the American people who voted despite the challenges COVID-19 presented.
In his message, he also called for a unification of the country as we move forward into 2021 when he will be inaugurated into office.
“With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation. It’s time for America to unite. And to heal,” Biden said. “We are the United States of America. And there’s nothing we can’t do, if we do it together.”
Contact the reporter at mphammel@asu.edu.
"The Flexible Journalist" -
Hammel is a fourth-year student studying broadcast journalism at Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite college in an accelerated bachelor's-master's program. She is currently the Executive Editor for The Downtown Devil - a publication that covers hyperlocal news in the downtown Phoenix area - and is always looking for ways to improve her reporting and news writing skills—behind the camera and in front of it.
Hammel is also a certified yoga instructor at the Sun Devil Fitness Complex; she is flexible physically as well as in a way that allows her to be able to cover any news story that will educate the public, encourage civil discourse and impact communities.
