PODCAST: Local hosts remind voters ‘to get voice heard’

Local elections are actually just as critical as the national elections, podcast host Buki Domingos says

Polling Location at County Registrar of Voters

Ingrid Estrella

San Diegans arrive to cast their votes at the County Registrar of Voters on Election Day in November 2021. Photo by Ingrid Estrella/City Times Media

Sven Domingos, Multimedia Journalist

Host Sven Domingos takes listeners behind the scenes of the Alafia Voices of the African Diaspora podcast in a new CTM podcast.

Buki Domingos and Darwin Fishman host a podcast that focuses on local politics, racial justice, elections and voting.

The pair met in 2017 during a racial justice event and now hosts the podcast every Sunday at 1 p.m. on Facebook Live.

The California Primary Election on June 7 will be the first election to use the new district boundaries drawn in 2021.

Given the typically low turnout of midterms and primary elections, City College students could potentially have a significant impact on the results.

Although midterm elections typically draw less interest than presidential elections, students across the U.S. blew past previous midterm voting numbers in 2018, according to a Tufts University Institute for Democracy and Higher Education report, which tracked student voting trends. 

“In the 2018 midterm elections, the average student voting rate at U.S. colleges and universities more than doubled from the last midterm elections, jumping from 19% in 2014 to 40% in 2018,” the report stated.

Students smashed records again in the 2020 presidential election, including here at City College, according to a Tufts IDHE report specific to City College provided to City Times Media by Susan Murray, dean of institutional effectiveness at City.

“Based on the 2020 presidential election turnout,” Murray wrote, ”City College also received national recognition – the Bronze Seal for attaining 50% – 59% voter participation.”

City students voted at a rate of 57.4%, which was 12% higher than City’s 2016 rate of 45.4%, according to the report, “just ahead of the national average for public two-year colleges (56%),” Murray wrote.

It remains to be seen if these trends continue at City.

The June 7 election will be the first countywide contest under California’s new Voter’s Choice Act, which requires mail ballots to be sent to “every active registered voter,” according to the registrar’s website.

Ballots can be returned by mail, or at any dropbox or Vote Center. For a list of locations, or for more information click here.

Vote Center locations will be open for in-person voting on June 6 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Election Day, June 7 from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.

To track your ballot click here.

Enterprise editor Kathy Archibald contributed to this report.