Valley welcomes area voters

Valley College becomes a Voting Center for the upcoming primary election

By Savannah Simmons, Opinion Editor

In an effort to make voting more readily available for those eligible in LA County, Valley College will become one of the many Vote Centers for the 2020 Presidential Primary Election.

Valley, along with the eight other L.A. Community Colleges, will all hold Voting Centers on campus starting this week. Registered students, faculty and staff will be able to vote on campus along with anyone from the public who wishes to choose Valley as their Voting Center. Monarch Hall will serve as the voting site according to the L.A. Vote Locator, Feb. 29 - March 2 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and March 3 from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

“The District is working directly with Los Angeles County to make sure each college has a voting center that our students and the public can access,” according to a press release from LACCD Board Vice President Steven Veres. “We cannot stress enough the importance for everybody to cast their ballots. Not only is voting our right and duty, but we must seek to enable easy access to the ballot for all voters whenever possible.”

In years past, L.A. County polling places were designated for certain neighborhoods and voters but this year, for the first time, will use Vote Centers. Voters have the ability to cast a ballot at any center in the county. This new move made by the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk, Dean Logan, is to encourage more people to get out and vote by making voting simple and less of a hassle.

“This system and model bring to voters an additional 10 consecutive days that allows for voters to go to any location in the county,” said Mike Sanchez, a spokesman for the Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office. “So if they are on the way to work or dropping kids off at school, or they go to school, or if they’re at the grocery store or a movie or the gym, there will be locations nearby.”

Valley will be equipped with Ballot Marking Devices instead of the previous ballots voters had to blot with ink. The new devices bring in modern technology; touchscreen tablets which are wheelchair accessible, 13 languages available for users and a number of assistive features for disabled voters.

Voters who have missed the deadline to register are able to vote in the March Primary Election through Conditional Voter Registration, which allows their ballot to count after their eligibility has been verified by the Los Angeles County Registrar.