WACO, Texas (KXXV) — McLennan County elections staff told 25News they saw something "surprising" during the 2024 election at one polling location involving Baylor students and the polling location on campus.
“Baylor students showed out yesterday," said Jared Goldsmith, McLennan County Elections Administrator. That was one of our top five busiest sites in the county, and it’s one of our new sites, too."
Goldsmith said they had about 10,000 more registered voters in 2024 than four years ago in 2020. Jared said there are around 160,000 registered voters in the county—just over 100,000 voters cast their ballot in 2024—slightly more than the 99,000 in 2020.
While it's still a little too early to know exactly how many younger voters cast ballots in the county for the 2024 election, some Baylor students opted out of sending in an absentee ballot and instead wanted to vote in McLennan County, where Baylor is located.
“They could come to our office and vote a limited ballot,” Goldsmith said.
I spoke to students on campus about this and why they voted in McLennan County over sending in an absentee ballot.
“I kind of didn’t know that was an option," One student said. "It was inconvenient to drive back home three hours, so I wanted to stay on campus and just vote close by.”
“It was just like closer — so easy," said another student.
Of all ballots cast in the 2024 election — 14% were from young voters ages 18-29, according to the National Election Pool exit poll conducted by Edison Research.
Those numbers are lower than the 17% in 2020 and 19% in 2016.
Waco ISD’s University High School was also a polling location, and some of its students were first-time voters.
“This election was such a critical election," said one first-time voter. Another added, “It just feels like a privilege to have been able to.”
A more hands-on approach to helping students learn the voting process could be the key to getting more younger people to cast ballots. Many schools are already doing this.
Nick Davoust is a social studies department chair and teacher at University High School.
“I think students, for the most part, have been about the same amount of interested (in voting and elections), but we’re getting better at learning how they learn and trying to tailor it to them," Davoust said.
