Young voters fight for early voting

More from this show

Student Isaiah Hinzman at Eastern Arizona College fought to open a new early voting site on his campus, Arizona’s oldest community college, this year. Hinzman expresses always having a big interest in U.S. History and an also considers himself an advocate for civic engagement. He discusses why this is so important to them, how they got involved and what they want other (young) people to know about voter access.

Part of MTV Campus Challenge, Isaiah joins students across the country who are on the front lines fighting to defend existing early voting sites on their campus at a crucial time – with the midterms just a month away and early voting rolling out across the country.

“Their goal is to bring early voting on campus to give young voters, and just students and people in the community a chance to have a place accessible to vote in person early,” Hinzam said. “There are a lot of people who have jobs and other outside activities like that when they are not able to go vote in person on a Tuesday.”

MTV involvement on this project has helped these students to spread awareness about it. “They have helped us with getting funding to help put on events, to help register students to vote and inform them on different topics on what they will be voting on,” Hinzam said.

In 2020 there was a record turnout for young voters, with this project, Hinzman hopes to repeat this turnout. “I think just informing young voters on the importance of voting, specially for midterms because a lot of people don’t believe that the midterms as important as general election,” Hinzam said. “We’re just hoping to see an increasing in young voter turnout here on campus and in Arizona.”

Some of the key issues that arise in young voters conversations according to Hinzman are immigration and abortion. Therefore, one of the aspects they really need to examine is who they are putting into Senate.

“I would like students to know that early voting is important and voting in general is important if you want to get your voice out and heard,” Hinzam said.

Isaiah Hinzman, Voter Advocate

Illustration of columns of a capitol building with text reading: Arizona PBS AZ Votes 2024
April 2

Arizona PBS to present candidate debates as part of ‘AZ Votes 2024’

A photo journalist walking a destroyed city
airs April 2

Frontline: 20 Days in Mariupol

A woman working on a project in an art studio
airs March 29

Violet Protest

The
aired March 25

Pulitzer on the Road: Small Town Shakedown

Subscribe to Arizona PBS Newsletters

STAY in touch
with azpbs.org!

Subscribe to Arizona PBS Newsletters: