Teacher, businessman, sales clerk: How and why 7 Sacramento residents voted in election
Teacher Josh Dennis has voted since he first became eligible in 1992, always at the polling station because he loves what he calls “the OG ‘I Voted’ sticker.”
He did his civic duty this year at a community center surrounded by the Marina Vista public housing project in Upper Land Park. Asked outside the polls whether he believed in the U.S. election process, the 50-year-old Dennis replied: “Yes, for sure, without a doubt.”
Something about the certainty of Dennis’ approbation indicated he’d considered the topic in many of the government, economics and social science classes he teaches.
Turnout was light early Tuesday as Dennis and other Sacramento residents turned in their ballots at the Marina Vista Community Center and the South Sacramento Christian Center, two areas of the city where families often struggle to meet their basic needs.
Five of seven voters outside the venue declared they had chosen Kamala Harris to become the next president of the United States. One voter declined to share her choice and the seventh said he decided to cast his first-ever vote in a U.S. election to support Donald Trump’s return to the highest office in the land.
The 38-year-old Trump supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, develops new business relationships for his employer. He said he believes the former president will make changes that will improve his personal financial position.
“There’s only one way where our dollar’s gonna be worth more, so that’s the reason,” he said. “That’s why I was like, ‘You know what? I’m voting. Thirty-eight years, the first time ever voting.”
Presidential candidates inspire first-time voters
Both candidates drew their share of first-time voters: Retail sales associate Nancy Cam, 37, said she cast her first-ever vote for a presidential candidate because she desperately wanted Harris to win.
Trump, she said, “talks a lot of mess about” African Americans and Latino Americans, and she wants this kind of racial and ethnic divisiveness to end.
Performance artist LaRasha Smith also cast her vote for Harris, saying she saw herself in the candidate, Smith had four of her children in tow, on her way to drop them off at preschool and elementary school. She said she hopes local and state ballot measures will bring a greater number of enrichment opportunities for her children.
Smith will be glued to her television tonight along with much of the nation, waiting to see which states turn red indicating electoral votes have gone to the Republican presidential candidate or blue for the Democratic candidate, she said.
This electoral college framework makes it hard to trust the election process, Smith said. She expressed a wish to see the nation’s president be elected by popular vote, just as ballot initiatives, senators, representatives and other elected officials are decided.
AT&T retiree David Hill, a 69-year-old Republican, said elections and voting are the best opportunity citizens have to communicate what they want to elected officials. If Hill’s candidate wins, the first woman will sit behind the historic Resolute desk in the Oval Office.
”I haven’t voted for Trump ever,” Hill said. “When he came into the picture, I totally went against the Republican Party, because the man is out for himself. He doesn’t care at all about the people of the United States of America. He only cares about his power and the money he can grift off of us.”
Hill praised U.S. Reps. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming, and Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., for their leadership during the Jan. 6 hearings in the U.S. Congress.
Election offered chance to send message
A father of four and a Navy veteran, Hill said came out to make his voice heard on the many ballot initiatives before California and Sacramento voters.
He said that he wants to see more affordable housing in California but that he didn’t think the rent control ballot initiative, Proposition 33, was the way to get there. One of his sons recently moved back in with him because his landlord gave him a 30-day notice to vacate, then raised the rent on the place where he had been staying by about 50%.
In truth, though, Hill said, he and his wife have thoroughly enjoyed the young couple staying with them, but they understand that this wasn’t the route their son would have chosen. Part of the problem, Hill said, is that people cannot afford to live on the wages being paid in this country.
“They cannot afford to live here because their wages are so low,” he said. “The profits that these big businesses make outweigh anything else. Why can’t you afford to pay your people a little better?”
Brian Crilly, a 45-year-old architect, said he voted for Harris and for ballot initiatives he hoped would deliver broader equity in California and Sacramento. He has been unhappy with the demonization of people on both sides of the political aisle, he said, and he believes Harris has shown the character traits needed to mend rifts at home and abroad.
“The world’s like a spider web,” he said. “You pull on one piece, it doesn’t fail, but if you pull on multiple pieces, it begins to fail. If you pull one piece, certain pieces next to it move, right? They weaken.”
Dennis said he wasn’t all that excited by some of the policies that Harris supported, but he voted for her for much the same reason that Hill voted against Trump. The civics teacher said he has an enthusiasm for democracy that he tries to instill in his students.
“I tell the students to participate in everything as much they can,” Dennis said. “Not everyone’s 18 yet, obviously, but I just try to pique their interest in this governmental experiment that we have going on, and just telling them not to take it for granted, because it can all disappear at any moment in time.”
Retiree Judisene Franklin Uboma, both a missionary and a mother at Progressive Church of God in Christ, said she would be visiting her late husband Christopher’s grave and putting an “I Voted” sticker there to commemorate how she cast her vote. But she wouldn’t reveal which presidential candidate she supported.
“I believe in voting,” Uboma said. “That’s my right — and the only way to make a change. I’m a Christian. I’m saved. I let the Lord guide my heart. I voted, and it’s in God’s hands.”
This story was originally published November 5, 2024 at 4:18 PM.
