Pot, education and legal rights for same-sex partnerships topped the motley list of student concerns on Election Day.
“The marijuana amendment and school spending were the only important things to me,” said Garrett Collier, a third year environmental studies major who voted at Williams Village.
Erin McCann, a junior political science major, also voted at Williams Village and said she felt most strongly about Referendum I, which would give legal rights to same-sex couples, and Amendment 44, which would make possession of up to one ounce of marijuana legal for those 21 and older.
“Those were the only things I really cared about. I didn’t vote for the things I didn’t know about,” McCann said.
Alice Shallcross said she was unfamiliar with many of the issues on the ballot, but that “Referendum I and anything geared toward education is very important to me.”
Although Shallcross, a freshman open-option major, is from Chicago, she said she voted in Colorado since she will be living here for at least four years.
Shallcross hopes the immigration issues on the ballot won’t pass.
“I was disappointed that some of the immigration issues, against immigrants, made it on to the ballot.”
Shallcross said she was impressed with Amendment 44.
“I would have never seen that back home,” she said.
Maria Malanowski, a freshman Spanish major who voted at Kittredge Commons with Shallcross, was also supportive of Referendum I.
“It’s not marriage, but it’s a nice step,” she said.
Malanowski said that almost everybody in her dorm voted in the elections.
Kyle Rolofson, a junior psychology major, said he voted for Referendum I and against Amendment 43, which would define marriage as between one man and one woman in the Colorado Constitution.
“I voted yes on pot, yes on clean water, yes on energy efficiency, yes on schools and parks. But I didn’t even mark down on the judges,” he said.
Asked whether most people he knew voted in the election, Rolofson said that “a lot of them had good intentions to vote. Whether they did or not, who knows.”
