With the 2024 election under way, it is important to know the candidates on the ballot, from the presidential candidates to county officials. The College Democrats of OU (CDOU) has been holding a ballot workshop event where students not only get to learn the names on their ballot, but research who they are and what they stand for.
Rose Smith, the president of CDOU, set up the event to focus on the nonpartisan section of the ballot.
“We’ll cover everything, especially if people want to know more about the county officials and stuff like that, but generally, our main goal is to educate people on the judges and all that running in the race,” Smith said. “This is simply because I know in 2022, the drop off between the partisan and nonpartisan section on the ballot was 1 million voters, which is an insane margin. So overall, we want to help people accomplish their goals and vote for their beliefs when they vote, no matter what their beliefs are.”
Smith explains why it is important to look into who you are voting for.
“Everyone knows who’s running for president and mostly everyone knows who’s running for Senate, but even when you start to get down to the federal congressional races, some people just don’t know who these people are,” Smith said. “These local politicians, from the county executive and in our state legislature, are who impact our lives the most. It’s most important that everyone knows who they are and knows what they do and knows who they’re voting for in that regard.”
For Smith, it is important to research the nonpartisan races specifically, since they still have party affiliations, even though they can’t say it.
“All those nonpartisan races, they have party affiliations, they just can’t say it,” Smith said. “You can still look at their endorsements, see who has endorsed them, and what parties they’re affiliated with. Always keep in mind the status of your local elections, whether or not it’s competitive and whether or not you can do more in whatever race you’re in.”
A great tool CDOU has been using to help students during the ballot workshops, is the Michigan Secretary of State website.
“We generally use the Michigan Secretary of State website, because the Michigan Secretary of State website is amazing,” Smith said. “We get people’s names, their zip code and the year they were born, and we’re able to search up their general election ballot.”
For those wanting to look into candidates on their own, researching politicians is an easy task as there are several online tools that can help.
“As I said, the Michigan Secretary of State website is phenomenal for finding out who your candidates are,” Smith said. “There’s also vote411.org which is a very good site that has pretty detailed biographies about each candidate for the most part, no matter how local they are and, of course, just searching up names you see on the preview ballot, and just looking at endorsements.”
To access the Michigan Secretary of State website and search the candidates for your area, visit michigan.gov. For more on the College Democrats at OU, visit their GrizzOrgs page.
