BALLOT BEGINNERS
Arizona voters celebrate first time going to polls
Rudy Barron voted for the first time last month.
He dropped off his mail-in ballot at a county elections office in downtown Phoenix, near the neighborhood where he first lived when he came to the city as a child.
Barron is 65. He could have voted for decades, but he didn’t believe his vote mattered much. He thought all politicians were crooks, so he didn’t get involved. That changed this year.
His daughter-in-law, Arizona state Rep. Raquel Terán, D-Phoenix, had told him many times he should vote. He would have voted for her, he said, but he lives in a different legislative district.
The consequences of this year’s election and a strong belief that Donald Trump should not remain president – along with reminders from Terán – convinced him of the value of his vote. It convinced him of the need to show up. He voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Barron is one of many first-time voters in Arizona. They’re of all ages, of all backgrounds and political beliefs. Some are just now old enough to cast their votes after spending their teenage years watching politics. Others are older and decided it was finally time to get involved. Some had barriers keeping them from voting, like their immigration status, and are voting for the first time after clearing those hurdles.
Their stories show it’s never too late to start voting. A first vote is a celebration. At the polls, a first-time vote often elicits a round of applause.
Many first-timers felt their votes in the presidential race, for either candidate, held greater importance now that Arizona is up for grabs. They also felt the excitement of participating in the democratic process.
When Barron dropped off his ballot, a mariachi band on-site for a get-out-thevote event started playing Rudy’s song, “El Rey,” at the request of Terán.
He started singing along, spreading his arms wide and belting out the words. “Pero sigo siendo el rey (But I’m still the king)!” It felt appropriate for the moment.
He voted, and they played his song, in the neighborhood he knew as a boy. It was emotional at the time, and he still felt emotional talking about it many days later.
“I know I didn’t do the right thing in my life, not voting, not trusting, I know that. I apologize for that. But from now on, I hope I can convince some of my friends, like me, who don’t believe in politics,” Barron said.
Now that he’s started voting, he’s not going to stop.
“I already put my feet in the water. I’m just going to keep swimming.”
Coming of age and voting
For some voters, the 2020 election offers the first opportunity to vote in a presidential election, or any election at all. Some young people who were politically engaged throughout their teen years finally can cast their ballots this year.
Abril Valenzuela turned18 in September. The Glendale resident envisioned her first time voting would be in person, at a polling place. But the pandemic made voting by mail feel safer.
She filled out her ballot at the kitchen table with her parents, who can’t vote because of their immigration status. They were excited to see her fulfill her dream to cast a ballot.
“We had a little dance party after I filled it out and sealed it,” she said.
A registered Democrat, she looks for candidates who support families like hers. She said she plans to vote whenever she can since there are many in the country who don’t have the ability.
“I’m excited to vote as a representative of my family since my family can’t vote. I feel like, in a way, I’m making that vote on behalf of my parents and my friends who can’t vote, and millions of immigrants in the United States who also can’t vote,” Valenzuela said.
Alyssa Kihoi, a 20-year-old student originally from Hawaii, grew up conservative. A registered Republican who supports Trump, she feels the presidential election is a battle for the future of the country. She cares about law enforcement, the economy and small businesses.
She’s involved on campus as a member of the Arizona State University College Republicans, and she’s had a lot of conversations with friends about the importance of voting this year.
This election marked her first time voting. She, too, thought her first time would be in person, at a polling place. But she received a ballot by mail, then dropped it off. She celebrated with a Starbucks coffee.
“It was a lot to know that you are gifted this right to vote, and I just took it really seriously. You really just want to make the right decision when voting, no matter what side you’re on,” she said.
Sophia Hammer, an 18-year-old high school senior, was politically engaged for a few years before she was old enough to cast a ballot. She’s involved in March for Our Lives in Arizona, a group of young people working to prevent gun violence, and she’s in an activism club at her high school, Gilbert Classical Academy. She’s a high school intern for the Mark Kelly campaign.
She registered to vote when she was 16, but had to wait for the first general election when she was of voting age. She received her ballot by mail and dropped it off at a post office. Pre-pandemic, she had envisioned voting in person. The Biden campaign filmed her dropping off her ballot for a first-time voter video, which she said was exciting.
“I just went with my mom. We celebrated afterwards. I actually made a little video too myself, of me filling out my ballot for the first time,” Hammer said.
Clearing hurdles to ballot box
Several barriers can prevent people from voting, including immigration status, losing rights because of felonies and age.
Some first-time voters cleared those hurdles and now are ready to participate in the democratic process.
Michael Bautista, a 25-year-old who recently moved to Arizona from New York, became a U.S. citizen in 2018. Born in the Philippines, he’s voting in his first presidential election since he gained citizenship, though he’s voted in some local races in New York since then.
He plans to vote for Trump in person on Election Day. An independent voter, he used to align more with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and was a supporter of Bernie Sanders.
He said there’s no way he will change his mind on whom he will vote for for president.
“So, I’ll be voting on Election Day just for sentimentality, basically,” Bautista said.
It feels special to vote for the first time in a presidential election as someone who has followed U.S. politics for many years before he could vote, he said. And it’s nice to be voting in a newfound swing state like Arizona, where there’s a sense that the presidential race could be close and all votes will matter.
“It has motivated me to talk a lot more about politics because you can persuade 100,000 people in NYC personally, and it would not change a thing. But if you could somehow magically persuade 100,000 people in Arizona, that would definitely swing the entire state,” Bautista said.
Deciding it was time
For some, despite being old enough and able to vote in the past, it was just time to get off the sidelines, they said, much like it was for Rudy Barron.
Michael Piechoinski, 28, a registered Republican from Tolleson who voted for Trump, hadn’t voted before this year because he wasn’t informed about politics, he said. A few years ago he made a post on social media that generated a backlash and it made him want to better understand why people reacted the way they did.
“I wasn’t made aware of the implications voting had during my formative years in school. It was never really something that I had thought of or was concerned about. Up until I left home, I was pretty sheltered from the outside world growing up.”
He dropped off his ballot at the local post office and signed up to track its progress to make sure it gets counted. He hasn’t done anything special yet to celebrate his first time voting, but he plans to get together with friends on election night.
Devon Cordova, a 23-year-old Peoria resident, decided a few months ago that he had to vote this time. In 2016, he wasn’t impressed with either presidential candidate, so he sat out the election.
But he didn’t like the direction the country has headed the past four years. He signed up to vote by mail and filled in the bubble for Biden. He turned it in the next day, dropping it off at a location near him.
“I was all excited,” Cordova said. After dropping off their ballots, he and his dad went to Burger King to celebrate, to remember the day they voted. He feels good to now count himself as a voter.
“I’m going to vote far more often,” he said.