Aside from juggling multiple classes, University of Mississippi students face a new responsibility on Nov. 7: Election Day.
In the upcoming weeks, students can cast their ballots in-person and by mail, with most in-state students opting to vote in person.
Caitlin Knight, a sophomore nursing major, has previously voted in Mississippi and will be voting again this year in-person.
“I voted in a local election last year, but I haven’t voted in Oxford before. I haven’t faced any difficulties before, so it should be fairly simple,” Knight said.
Knight also noted that apathy prevents a large number of students from participating.
“I am the only one out of my friends that has voted before. I don’t know too many people that are going to vote; everybody else is either not registered to vote in Oxford, or they just don’t care that much,” Knight said.
However, other students are registered to vote in their home states outside of Mississippi, which poses a dilemma in finding out how to send a mail-in ballot if they don’t want to take a trip back home.
Mail-in voting is a method of voting that allows citizens to cast their ballots via mail if they are unable to attend in person. With an estimated 49.2% of Ole Miss students being from out of state, nearly half of the school’s population are hours away from their registered polling stations, so mail-in voting is an excellent alternative for them.
Sophomore Taylor Rankin, a legal studies major, is from Idaho and will not be returning home to vote. She emphasized how important mail-in voting is for out-of-state students.
“(Casting a ballot in-person) is something I’m going to have a problem with because I’m from Idaho, so I’ll either have to mail in or wait until I go home over break, which is probably going to pose a bit of a challenge,” Rankin said.
Despite the convenience of mail-in voting, many students still do not cast their ballots.
Rankin believes part of the problem comes from some students being far away from home, leading to them viewing the voting process as an inconvenience.
“I feel like (out-of-state students) don’t think about (the process of voting) as much because it’s not something you can just go do really quickly,” Rankin said. “It’s like a whole process to be able to go all the way back home, and it’s obviously going to cause more problems with people, and it’s less convenient for them.”
For anyone wary of mail-in ballots, people who have been residents of Mississippi for 30 days can re-register to vote in-state.
Rankin also believes that the government could do more to make different voting methods accessible to the public.
“Maybe I’m just not that educated, but I think (the government) could do better,” Rankin said.
