Rutgers—Newark students reveal voting anxiety at NJPIRG boba, chai event

With general elections in one week, students at a voting event on October 10 shared their feelings of anxiety about approaching the ballot. 

The nonpartisan New Jersey Public Interest Research Group (NJPIRG) at Rutgers—Newark held an event titled "Tea and Democracy: Boba and Chai Voting Fest" aimed at educating Asian students on the voting registration process and to encourage voter registration while consuming cultural snacks, Julie Jang, NJPIRG's New Voters Project campaign coordinator and a School of Arts and Sciences junior, said to The Daily Targum.

For many attending, it would be the first presidential election in which they can vote, including for NJPIRG's chapter president Robin Luong, a School of Arts and Sciences junior.

"It is a little bit nerve-racking for me personally. You might hear other people say this, but it is one of the biggest elections that I'm going to personally experience," Luong said.

Much of the anxiety from students is centered around the close presidential race between Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald J. Trump. They're not alone, as a recent poll shows 73 percent of U.S. adults are anxious about this very tight election, according to a poll by the American Psychiatric Association (APA).

Petros Levounis, the chair of psychiatry at New Jersey Medical School and president of the APA, found that the rapid and chaotic development of current events, including those related to the election, has led to higher stress levels.

"I'm scared. It's my first time voting ... I feel like it's not who is better to vote for — it's like who is lesser of the evil," volunteer Krisvel Elizondo, a School of Criminal Justice first-year, said. 

The event was directed at minority ethnic groups in particular due to the language and information barriers they face, according to Jang. Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote (APIAVote) reported that surveyed Asian American voters were increasingly confident they will vote in September compared to April, when President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was running for re-election as the Democratic candidate.

Jang told the Targum that more than 120 students attended the NJPIRG student event at the Paul Robeson Campus Center, which was co-sponsored by APIAVote. The organization expected 50 to 60 attendees.

She said that local political races tend to go unnoticed in the shadow of the presidential election and added that students should also pay attention to the other candidates on the ballot. 

"If you're not politically involved, (Harris and Trump) are the only two names that you know," Jang said. "We have so much more going on people do not know about that does not get coverage, and it's especially important because these are the people actually deciding things in our communities."