North Texas Daily

Staff Reports

With the end of the election just hours away, Denton residents share their hopes and give their input as voting continues throughout the day.

As a female African-American voter, criminal justice and psychology senior Tiara McGee said she feels an obligation to women and minorities throughout America to prevent a Trump presidency by voting.

“Hillary is the better candidate,” McGee said. “Being a woman who wants to be treated equally in the workforce, I care about my education and I grew up as a minority. [So] it feels like the democratic vote and Hillary is where I need to be.”

McGee hasn’t always been on board for Hillary. She started out as an avid supporter of Bernie Sanders but had to figure out a new alliance when he lost during the primaries.

“I wanted Bernie in the beginning, but I’m not going to vote third party,” McGee said. “If we do that then we might as well give the vote over to Trump.”

Mechanical engineering freshman Thomas Martin will vote for Trump today, but feels like he has no good option when it comes to candidates.

“I don’t really like Trump at all, but I think this election is really important because whoever gets elected is [able to] appoint at least one, [if not] three, supreme court justices,” Martin said. “There is also the issue of the Second Amendment [because] Hillary wants more gun control and I’m not for that.”

Martin also shared his fears on how the country will react once the election comes to a close.

“I’m afraid there might be some riots no matter who wins,” Martin said.

The controversial scandals involving Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton influenced UNT marketing student Juan Diaz to consider voting for one of the third party candidates, Green Party candidate Jill Stein or Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.

“Most people think it’s between [Clinton and Trump],” Diaz said. “There are other people to take [into] consideration.”

UNT student Trevor Miller said that his first election is about choosing “the lesser of two evils.”

“I’m just voting against Hillary,” Miller said.

He also said that voting for the first time made him feel “very patriotic” and proud to be a U.S. citizen.

“I [clapped] after I submitted my ballot,” Miller said. “The guy sitting beside me kind of looked at me, but I didn’t care. I was excited to vote.”

Ultimately, Donald Trump’s controversial comments toward minorities led business sophomore Devin Pierce to cast his vote for Hillary Clinton.

“It was relatively easy,” Pierce said about his selection. “Although I think there’s a lot of problems with both [candidates].”

First-time voter Lewis Garcia, a biology freshman, was extremely confident when he placed his vote for Hillary Clinton out of opposition to Donald Trump.

“Why would I support someone that promotes violence and racism?” Garcia said. “All Trump is doing is dividing the nation.”

Freshman Michael Reyes, on the other hand, tried not to vote for policies he wasn’t informed about.

“I voted for Gary Johnson because I can’t imagine growing up and telling my kids I voted for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump,” Reyes said.

Though this election has left Reyes unsure, he is ready to accept the results tonight.

“I’m not sure if I’m excited but I’m ready to pray for whoever is in office,” Reyes said.

Garrett Parsa, an anthropology and history senior, said he felt bad about how the election went and voted for Clinton.

“I agree with most of the social policies she stands for,” Parsa said. “I don’t agree with a lot of her foreign policies at all though.”

Parsa also said neither of the third party candidates were viable options and he voted for Bernie Sanders in the primary.

“It’s how our system runs,” Parsa said. “They give us similar options and polarize them. Both parties are similar but with different social and economical platforms.”

First time voter Maira Rivera almost didn’t get to vote early at the Gateway Center because of registration issues.

“It was kind of discouraging because I registered [there] but, for some reason, [my registration] didn’t come up so they tried not to let me vote,” Rivera said.

Rivera ended up voting for Hillary Clinton once the issue was resolved.

“It’s a very different election,” Rivera said. It’s the first one I’ve been paying attention to.”

Anthropology senior Mason Kuzmich expressed frustration and disappoint over the presidential candidates.

Kuzmich described the election as a whole as ‘a big fat mistake.’

“I voted for Clinton,” Kuzmich said. “I felt stuck with someone I didn’t care to vote for in the first place.

Kuzmich said he felt like Clinton was clearly the better option out of the two candidates.

“She was just the best out of the options I didn’t really care for,” Kuzmich said.

This was not an exciting election for integrative studies junior Omolola Adegoke, but her distaste for Donald Trump caused her to vote for Hillary Clinton.

“I don’t like either one of them,” Adegoke said. “I felt like she was the better of the both.”

Despite the outcome of the election, Adegoke said she will miss President Obama.

“I wish Obama could run a third term,” she said.

This year’s election is like no other, and has left many voters selecting the candidate they dislike the least.

The exciting act of voting and exercising your rights as a citizen compelled converged media freshman Morgan Webster to vote.

“It was kind of terrifying, it was weird,” Webster said of her first time voting. “It was exciting because it’s like your civic duty to vote for your candidate. But it felt right also, like I was doing the right thing.”

Webster said she was anxious about the election, but optimistic regardless of the outcome.

“I’m nervous [about the election], but excited also,” Webster said. “It’s an exciting process no matter who’s the candidate.”

Experience means a lot to students like public health junior Nicholas Salas, who was sitting in the UNT Union as people talking about the election passed by. In regards to this election, the lack of experience that GOP nominee Donald Trump possess has Salas leaning another way.

“I plan on voting for Hillary Clinton,” Salas said. “I don’t think Trump has the experience. Just like other people are expected to have the experience for other jobs, he does not have the experience to be in this position.”

Although this is not the general consensus, Salas said this election has him fired up and excited.

“I’m excited to see how this election turns out, most of the country is pretty divided right now for Clinton or for Trump,” Salas said. “Obviously, a lot of people don’t trust our government officials right now, and that’s why people are voting for Trump.”

For many students, this 2016 election is their first election to vote in. Unfortunately for democracy, many of the students are less than enthusiastic about their voting choices, as is the case with kinesiology senior Sam Johnson.

“I’m ready for this election to be over, I’m tired of seeing it all over social media and everywhere else,” Johnson said.

For many the choices are not about who would be the better candidate but simply about doing whatever it takes for the other candidate to lose.

“My mom encouraged me to vote. It’s really a lesser of two evils when deciding on who I am voting for, which will probably end with me voting for Clinton,” he said.

The ethics and views of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton during this election pushed music education senior Christie Gibson to vote third party.

“I mostly voted in principle,” Gibson said. “I didn’t want to vote for either Clinton or Trump.”

She felt the election wasn’t very good overall this year.

“Neither of the main candidates were very appealing to me,” she said.

The election’s controversies left accounting junior Xavier Payton feeling disconnected. He found it difficult to ultimately choose one candidate.

“I don’t really listen to politics like that so I didn’t really know [what was happening],” he said.

He found himself leaning toward one candidate more than the other in the end, despite not tuning in frequently. He did not divulge who he voted for.

“They had a good few standpoints, but it was whatever,” he said.

The amount of bickering between the two presidential candidates left UNT students Max Biko, an entrepreneurship major, and Dominic Sipe, a kinesiology major, unhappy with this year’s election.

“I feel like they were fighting each other and not really talking about the issues,” Biko said.

Sipe voted for Trump, and Biko plans on doing the same.

“This election is pretty bitter,” Sipe said.

Hillary Clinton’s chance to make history, as well as her plans for the future, helped Cassandra Martin, a media arts senior, decide who she was going to vote for earlier this year.

“I care about the environment and women’s rights, and the future of humanity,” Martin said.

Martin voted early, and plans on watching the election closely this evening.

“I’m confident that she will win, but this race was too close.” she said.

For a first-time voter, business administration freshman Anam Rizki took her role in the election seriously and spent a lot of time researching her choice for president.

“I’m voting for the first time, so I wanted to know what I was doing,” Rizki said. “I’m voting for Hillary Clinton.”

While Rizki plans to vote for Clinton, her vote is more of an effort to keep Clinton’s opponent, Donald Trump, out of office.

“I was just voting against Trump,” Rizki said. “I wasn’t necessarily for Hillary. I just don’t really like his demeanor or his character, and I would feel so comfortable with a that kind of leader in our country.”