Voters at the SteelStacks polling location waited roughly five minutes in the morning to reach the polls on Tuesday.
The Brown and White spoke to Bethlehem residents and Lehigh students to learn more about what was important to them when voting.
Q: Why did you come out to the polls today?
Carmen Davis: It is so important not just for seniors but the young people to realize that this is the only way to change things. We can get angry, we can sit home and fuss, but that’s not going to change anything.
Voting is what changes things, and if we want things right now to get back to at least some type of normalcy. This is the only way to do it.
Jacqueline Darling: I feel that it’s very important to vote, no matter how young you are or old you are. When you’re at the age to vote, you should vote.
Thomas Stein, Lehigh alumnus: It’s civic duty — like an exercise you should never get out of, like getting up in the morning.
Q: Do you always vote in-person?
Jacqueline Darling: I always vote in-person, and one reason why I definitely came today was because of all the controversy and the confusion and the commotion and the mistrust. I had a mail-in ballot, but I was like, “No, I think I just need to go.”
Someone sent me information (that said) to make sure none of the poll workers when you go to cast your ballot leave any type of marks on the ballot because if there’s an R or D or star, a line, a dot, a scratch, anything, it will be disqualified and thrown in the trash. So that means your vote won’t count. You can’t do that if you send it in the mail. So that was one of the main reasons I came out.
Thomas Stein, Lehigh alumnus: I always (vote in-person). And not that I don’t trust (the system), I just always vote in-person.
Tyler Lewis ‘27G: Yes, I vote in-person.
Quin Smith ‘26: I voted last time with a mail-in ballot that I dropped off on the North Side. This time I forgot to request something so I had to vote in-person.
Q: Is there one issue, or aspect of the campaigns, that matters most to you?
Carmen Davis: Oh, absolutely. They’re talking about taxing seniors’ disability money and social security. It’s very important to me. If we get taxed, we end up with nothing. Everything has already gone so high, the tariffs and everything that’s going on.
We cannot let them continue to cut programs and cut funding. Seniors, young people, it doesn’t matter. We all are out here just trying to live one day at a time.
Jacqueline Darling: The high rising cost of food, gas, the cost of living. Period.
You know I personally have been affected by it, and my daughter who’s in her early 40s and her husband who’s in his early 40s. They never (before) saw a struggle or a pinch. I never really heard them say anything about the cost of groceries or “this gas is getting ridiculous” or “do we take the kids on a vacation or do we stay home.”
That affected me this year more than ever because I actually heard them constantly in conversation (about rising costs) — I spend a lot of time with them in South Jersey — and that just really pierced my heart. That it’s even affecting them, the younger generation.
I thought it was just me and my generation that’s struggling to pay the bills, to buy the food, to get the medication, to get gas. It just breaks my heart to see that my child is going through that, and I’m hoping and praying that it’ll be better when my grandchildren get older. But the way it looks now, it seems like everything is going down instead of progressing.
Thomas Stein, Lehigh alumnus: I think the bias, the bigotry, the whole idea of having a party separate us from each other as neighbors is just outrageous. I’ve never seen it happen so bad in the last four years.
Tyler Lewis ‘27G: Showing up.
Quin Smith ‘26: I just usually always vote blue.
Q: Do you have any advice for younger voters?
Carmen Davis: Please vote. Please vote. It is so important. It doesn’t matter your party. It doesn’t matter your opinion. Everybody has one. Stick with your principles and do what your heart tells you, and that’s what voting is.
Jacqueline Darling: Please ask questions if you’re confused about how to use the voting machines or the voting process itself. Ask because there are people, as I found out today, that are willing to help you, and they’re doing it with a smile on their face… So, for the younger people to ask, don’t get frustrated, don’t get angry, don’t think that this is an older generation’s problem, and you guys are going to breeze through it. No, take a stance.
Have enough belief in yourself that your vote matters and that it counts. If it’s a long line or somebody’s giving you backlash for whatever or whoever you’re gonna vote for, still just go and vote for what it is that you have in your heart and who it is that you want to vote for.
Thomas Stein, Lehigh alumnus: Get into a habit. Your ability to vote is your only chance to get involved in this process. If you don’t, it’s on you. It’s important that you all get involved in the process.
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