Even though the media are very busy with the upcoming elections, it is quiet at the University at Albany campus. American studies student Timo Nijssen studies in the state of New York and notices that his fellow students are fed up with the election circus.

Many people feel that their vote doesn’t matter in New York anyway. In most American states, the winner takes all the votes, and in New York the Democratic party has been winning for decades. Why bother if Hillary Clinton will win anyway?

‘The cards are already laid out in New York,’ says Alana Ruth (18), a computer science major. ‘Of course you should still vote, but there’s no real point to it.’ Journalism major Amy Vele (21) didn’t even register to vote. ‘Clinton will win anyway and I don’t feel strongly towards either candidate. I would have to choose the lesser of two evils.’

Local elections
The College Democrats are not exactly campaigning heavily for Clinton either. Ryan Lott (22), the secretary of the local College Democrats and a Chinese, linguistics, and computer science major, says that there’s no point in doing so in New York. ‘We’re mainly focused on local elections for US Congress and for the State Senate. Those are more divided between Republicans and Democrats.’ On November 8 the presidential candidates will not be the only ones on the ballot; many other functions need to be filled as well, from senators and state assembly-members to judges.

The university is close to two electoral districts, which means that there are two seats in the House of Representatives up for grabs. And those are important to the next president: he or she can appoint a new judge to the influential Supreme Court, but Congress needs to agree. The more seats the party of the president has, the easier it is to get the nomination through. There are only few yard signs promoting candidates in Albany, and most of them are for candidates for Congress.

Not very active
The Democratic students are also helping people to register to vote, something that doesn’t happen automatically in the US. ‘We want students to be more politically active,’ says Lott. ‘Even if someone registers as Republican, we still see that as a benefit to democracy.’

Most students aren’t very active. ‘If they are active at all, they mainly focus on presidential candidates and not on state and city politics,’ says Lott. Ruth admits that she doesn’t really know who the local candidates are. ‘I have to look into that before I vote.’

‘Even the College Republicans despise Trump’

Although there are few outspoken Clinton supporters on campus, fans of Republican candidate Donald trump are even harder to find. There are rarely people walking around with a red Make America Great Again cap from the Trump campaign, and you hardly see any other political gear. Even the College Republicans despise Trump and have kicked his supporters out of their group so they can focus on ‘Marco Rubio 2020.’

Most people are just really tired of the elections. ‘The debates are almost like watching comedy with a lot of yelling,’ says Ruth. ‘It’s like watching a game show,’ Vele says. ‘It all doesn’t really seem real.’ Lott isn’t very optimistic either: ‘Everything has become so polarized that we don’t have a functioning government anymore.’