Freshman Mark Allen of Sacramento, California, spent Tuesday evening glued to CNN’s coverage of election results to see the effect his vote would personally have on the future of his country. “This is the first time I can vote, and I am so glad I made my voice heard,” says Allen. “I have been waiting a full eighteen years to make a difference in the future of this country. Tonight, I finally made that dream a reality.”
Allen’s ballot
joined those of more than seventeen million registered Californian voters to
choose 55 out of 538 representatives to the electoral college. California’s
winner-take-all system awarded all 55 of these votes to Obama, the majority
winner of the staunchly blue state.
When CNN
predicted that California would go to Obama one minute after polls closed,
Allen cheered along with his classmates at the knowledge that he had managed to
change Obama’s fate. “This
election was close, and I know that my vote really counted,” says Allen, who
self-identifies as a liberal along with more than half of his state. “I just
wanted the outcome of this election to personally reflect the preferences of
normal, everyday Americans like me.”
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