First-time voters struggle to participate in the 2024 presidential election

By Tamsin Vidal
November 2024

Carrington Allen, a freshman at Northeastern University, looked forward to voting in her first U.S. presidential election last week. Unfortunately, she will now have to wait another four years to do so, she said.

Allen, a health science and psychology major, applied for a mail-in ballot in her home state of Pennsylvania about a month before this year’s November election. Three weeks later, the Pennsylvania Chester County Election Office declined her ballot request because Allen was not a registered voter, according to an email sent to her. The message came too late, as the deadline to register had already passed. 

“I thought that applying for a mail-in ballot was also registering to vote,” Allen said. “I didn’t know I had to register separately.” 

On Nov. 5, Americans across the country headed to their polling sites to cast a vote for the 47th president of the United States. Though a close race, Republican nominee and former President Donald J. Trump defeated current Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat. This year’s election outcome heavily depended on swing states like Pennsylvania, which Trump won by 51%, according to the Cook Political Report — a publication that provides independent, non-partisan analysis of American elections, campaigns and political trends, according to their website.

For citizens unable to get to polling sites on Election Day, including college students like Allen who were living away from home, mail-in ballots were necessary to ensure that election officials counted their votes. But incidents this past season, like the arson of ballot boxes in the Pacific Northwest, raised concerns about the mail-in ballot system, according to multiple news sources.

Sydney Campbell-Teague, a neuroscience and psychology major at Boston University, did not trust the mail-in ballot system. The native New Yorker returned home for Election Day. She felt most comfortable casting her vote in person, she said.

“There’s a lot of issues with mail-in ballots being counted and, like, I heard in the news that drop boxes were being burned and stuff,” Campbell-Teague said. “So, I just thought I should go home.”

Lillian Hodge, a Harvard University sophomore registered to vote in Kentucky, felt anxious when it came to requesting and sending out her mail-in ballot. Hodge, a first-time voter, was unsure if her ballot would arrive by the Kentucky deadline. She said she did not receive any tracking information after she sent in her mail-in ballot but was able to check its status by searching the Kentucky voting website.

“I think mail-in ballots should have some sort of notification system,” Hodge said. “So, you can know where it is and that it is going to make it in time.” 

Allen also said she believes the mail-in ballot system needs updates.

“The system needs to be quicker. They shouldn’t allow people to apply for a mail-in ballot without being registered,” Allen said. “If I applied and they were immediately like, ‘oh, actually, you are not registered to vote, you can’t apply for a mail-in ballot yet,’ I could have then registered in time.”