Taking part in government
Gila Ridge students vote with a little help from Yuma County Election Services
Yuma County Election Services once again is lending a hand in helping familiarize high school students with the voting process.
This is the first year students at Gila Ridge High were able to participate, and the experience was a positive one.
“This process has been extremely smooth, extremely interesting and I think extremely helpful to our students,” said GRHS Student Council Advisor Stephanie Stone. “And it gave our students a natural real opportunity to have a say in what is going on in their school, which I feel like in other elections does not always happen, even though it was available to all students.”
Stone explained that the county’s election services lent their equipment to participating schools and created ballots with the names of candidates for student body government positions.
On election day, freshman and sophomore history classes and junior English classes come in to vote and experience firsthand the simplicity of the voting process.
“With the election process for this, the students are learning how an actual election is run,” Stone said. “So when they come in, they have to bring in their ID, get that approved, they get the actual slip of paper, go to the actual machines; it’s how the whole process would actually work.
“And so one of the most important things that students learn whenever they come here is how to be part of a city election, how to be part of a state election, a federal election. So it’s a really good low-impact experience for them because it can be really confusing and really overwhelming the first time you go. And so now all of these students are going to know what it looks like when they go to vote for city council, state council, so on and so forth.”
Afterward, students could pre-register to vote provided that they turn 18 by the next general election.
“I really liked it,” said junior Sophia Corona. “I feel like it’s really good to learn from and be ready for when we’re older. Definitely just having the whole machines out and having to go to a different room, it really makes it more real. And I feel like a lot more students become involved, and they actually get the chance to do it because before, we would do it on Google Forms and so not as many people would vote. This is just more hands-on. People know what they should expect when they vote for, say, president.”
Student Body President Jenoah Armijo noted that the assistance from the county has made a big difference in participation compared to voting online through Google Forms.
“I would say maybe a third of the school would actually put in their votes (through Google Forms),” Armijo said. “And it’s mostly like the people who are running’s friends because you go up to them at lunch and they’re like, ‘Hey, can you go vote for me?’ Because we’re not allowed to promote online. So it’s just kind of word of mouth like we’re going out to people and being like, ‘Hey, I’m running for student body president, my name is Jenoah.’”
And from what she’s been seeing and hearing, the students voting are really happy too.
“From what I’m hearing, I haven’t heard anything like negative coming from students,” she said.
“It’s just been a super interesting experience for everyone. There’s just something to do to get out of the classroom and kind of have more of an opinion on who’s going to be running the school and putting on the events that they’ll be attending.”
Armijo’s crossing her fingers that the help from Yuma County Election Services will continue to be a regular thing each year. And her peers in Student Council also hope to see more improvements made to the voting process.
“Campaigning hasn’t changed, but Student Council hopes to change that,” said Vice President Rebeca Flores. “We have the machines but we want a real election where people running can have speeches; maybe not give gifts, but not just be able to give word of mouth only either.”
Flores noted that campaigning students could only talk in person previously. They can’t text people, make posts online on their social media or create online accounts for campaigning, but now they can also make 20 small posters.
And the opportunity to have more students involved in the voting process is a big step in the right direction, according to the Student Council. Advisor Stephanie Stone concluded that “it’s really great that the city has come in and helped us do this.”