As the Governor’s race approaches, few students are paying attention.
Fairfax County Office of Public Affairs
The Office of Elections has attempted to reach out to eligible students to vote.
The election for Virginia governor on November 6th will help determine the state’s policies on education, health care, and immigration, yet, voter turnout is expected to be low. Furthermore, most students are not following the election that will be directly affecting them.
Despite the disinterested attitude taken by many students, the decisions made by the governor, are the ones that most critically affect students. Governors together with the legislator decide the funding for schools and health care in their state. They also reform tax codes and laws regarding social issues. All of these topics are very important and have a direct impact on all citizens of the state.
The two leading candidates for this year’s governor’s race are Ed Gillespie for the Republicans and Ralph Northam for the Democrats. The two major parties, the Democrats and Republicans often butt heads on issues such as taxes, funding for schools, healthcare and immigration.
Most students, when asked, said that they were not following the governor’s election. This ties back to Virginians not coming out to the polls for state or local elections.
“I’m not following the election because it’s not that important.It’s just the governor” senior Mary Hailu said.
Although many responses were most students, when asked, said they were not interested in the race, sophomores Tony Marnell and Sam Rodriguez said that they have been following the race.
“Yes, I am following the governor’s race. I am supporting Ralph [Northam] because we have similar beliefs” Rodriguez said.
The student responses mirror the low interest in the governor’s election among Virginians as a whole. According to the Virginia Department of Elections, fewer than half of eligible voters vote in non-presidential elections.
Student participation in political environments has been low as both the Democratic and Republican political clubs have disbanded this year.
“I have not been following the governor’s race at all because I don’t see state government as important enough for me to pay attention to,” freshman Jimmy Le said.
Manny Precht is a senior and the current Co-Editor in Chief of The A-Blast. It is his second year on staff where he was previously the Health Editor. In...
Linda J Johnson • Nov 7, 2017 at 10:07 am
This is hard to believe if you live in Northern VA. I am here and glad that I am because we are the a very diverse community, we can think and analyze. FCPS began teaching our students about Primary Sources in mid 2000s. Our Librarians, English teacher taught our student the process of analyzing and what can influence their beliefs about what they are reading or hearing in the media..