FORT WORTH, Texas — The sun barely up on a Saturday morning, a charter bus pulls up in front of a Fort Worth early voting location, and the first person to walk off is an energized Timeka Gordon who begins directing a line of college students from the bus to the poll.
Gordon herself wouldn’t be voting on this day; she was long past that point.
“I was just itching and ready to just take my voice and my power to the ballot box, so I did it on Tuesday [opening day],” said Gordon. “I waited in line for over an hour!”
This trip to the polls, rather, was all about that bus load of students, and the one she’d bring after that, and the one after that. Gordon, a student affairs director at Texas Christian University’s Intercultural Services Office, chartered that bus for that entire Saturday and planned to make trip after trip to the voting location right up until it closed for the day.
Each trip, she’d bring with her the next load of eager TCU students to cast their votes; the first time most of them have ever voted in an election.
“This year TCU was not an early voting location, so I wanted to make sure there was no barrier,” Gordon said.
She was more than a chauffeur on this day though. Gordon cheered her students on as they exited the poll one-by-one, proudly holding up their “I Voted” stickers for photo ops, and many embracing her in a hug as they took in the gravity of casting their first ballot.
“If I want a voice or even an opportunity at a voice I have to make sure that those that are representing me represent my ideals, my values, and who I am as a person,” said Thaddeus Uwalaka-ekennia, a TCU student as he reflected on the vote he’d just cast.
For Gordon and her fellow TCU staffers, the day of bus trips was a no brainer to help their students vote. After all, those students are a part of an often underserved population at the polls.
Historically, in a lot of recent elections, it’s the youngest voters in that 18 to low 20s demographic that have the lowest voter turnout numbers.
The importance being put on vote 2020 has many expecting a more significant turnout from that demographic this year, but it’s tough to tell how things will shake out. Early on, after the first day of early voting, neighboring Dallas County reported the 18-23 demographic already had the lowest voters of any age group turn out to cast a ballot.
Again, it’s early though and many polls and experts still seem optimistic for a big young voter turnout before the polls close.
Gordon is also optimistic and says, if nothing else, her students will be counted in the big decision this year.
“It takes everybody to do what they can,” she said. “I cannot change the entire outcome of how young voters go out there and exercise their right, but I know we are making a difference at the TCU campus.”