Princeton campus voters choose Obama, McCain

The Borough’s first voting district and the Township’s 12th district encompass the majority of the residences on campus and comprise almost entirely student voters, so they provide a fairly accurate picture of the University’s vote.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was the favorite among campus Republicans with 57 percent of the vote in the two districts, while former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney won 24 percent and Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) won 10 percent.

Non-University residents of the Township and Borough reflected voting preferences similar to those of the campus. Obama won 63 percent of the vote from the two municipalities compared to Clinton’s 33 percent. McCain beat out Romney, 62 percent to 26 percent. Obama and McCain also won Mercer County.

The results do not include voters who filled out provisional ballots, which officials cannot tally until the ballots have been examined by a judge.

Estimates from workers at polls in the four districts containing parts of campus put total student turnout at around 900.

Paul Anderson ’79, a Township election officer supervising the 12th district, noted that student turnout was unusually high. “This is the highest turnout this district has seen in the 18 years I’ve been working here, including presidential elections,” he said.

“This is the only New Jersey primary within limited memory that actually has a chance to affect the party,” he explained.

Uncounted votes

As election workers had feared, mis-registration posed a significant problem for students and poll workers.

Ben Sheng ’11 was one student who did not realize he needed to register in advance to vote. Sheng said that he was “disappointed, but it shows that I need to be responsible and sign up early.”

If students were registered to vote in Mercer County but were registered in the wrong voting district, they were allowed to fill out a provisional ballot.

A total of 97 students filled out provisional ballots in districts one and 12. Borough election official Arch Davis GS '69 said that provisional ballots might never get counted unless the election is especially close, and approval from a judge is required to validate them.

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Leo Ungar ’08, who voted with a provisional ballot, said that he would have rather voted in the voting booth, but that “if filling out a provisional [ballot] is what I have to do to vote, it’s what I have to do.”

Moving voters

Student groups worked persistently throughout the day to ensure that undergraduates made it to the polls. Yume Kitasei ’09, the Princeton College Democrats’ campaign coordinator, said that the Democrats had obtained a list of all students registered to vote in Princeton and had been knocking on their doors repeatedly — regardless of party affiliation — for the past three days in their Get out the Vote operation.

The Democrats’ headquarters in Frist Campus Center was buzzing with volunteers grabbing and returning clipboards as they rushed to knock on all the doors one more time. The list of voters provided by the Democrats showed 1,036 registered voters on campus, and Kitasei said that volunteers visited most of them. She added that ideally, each voter should have been contacted twice, once on Sunday or Monday and once today.

P-Votes volunteers manned an information table in Frist for 12 hours, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Elise Schlissel ’09, Democratic co-chair of P-Votes, said that her organization had been “mostly been clarifying" which districts students' dorms are in and directing students to the correct polling places.

Adam Hesterberg ’11, a volunteer for the College Democrats who is also a copy editor for The Daily Princetonian, said that he had been knocking on doors for several hours today and Sunday, speaking with registered as well as unregistered voters.

Hesterberg explained that most students expressed a desire to vote, but some were oblivious of the requirements. “People have asked for registration forms, but it’s too late to register for the primary. If they haven’t registered anywhere, I tell them to register here for the general election.”

Students who voted in Princeton cited convenience, student groups’ publicity efforts and that New Jersey is more influential than their home states as reasons for registering in Princeton rather than at home.

Kalyan Yalamanchi ’10 said that filling out absentee ballots is “too much mailing” for him. “You have to mail in the application, then they mail you back a ballot, so you have to go check your mail, and then you have to mail it back to them. It’s just a big hassle.”

“I’m from Arkansas, and people don’t pay attention to Arkansas much,” Yang Dai ’08 said. “I decided New Jersey would be a more important state.”

Pinto Adhola ’10 credited P-Votes with getting him to the polls. “Two of my roommates didn’t bother to register at all, but I saw the P-Votes table one day, so I registered with them. If I hadn’t seen them, I would have been in the same boat as my roommates.”

A political campus

The students who turned out to vote were vocal in support of their favorite candidates. Sean Murphy ’10 said he voted for Obama because “Hillary is an indecent inhuman criminal who has run a terrible campaign in the past few months and blemished the career of her husband.”

Grace Cineas ’10 had a more positive view of Clinton. “I voted for Hillary because I think she’s a strong candidate, and I think it’s time for a female to be the president. I think there will be a lot of changes in this country just by virtue of the fact that she is a woman.”

One Democratic voter voted for “Josh” as a write-in candidate.

Some Republicans were enthusiastic about McCain. Jonathan Galeano ’08 said he had been to a McCain rally in Hamilton yesterday. “I got my hat autographed by him!” he said.

Amanda Gonzalez '11 explained that she had voted for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee even though she “think[s] McCain has a better chance of winning the actual election.”

“I’m a conservative, and I just like Huckabee better. He’s more aligned with my views,” she explained.