On Nov. 4, SDSU students, along with other 23 million registered voters in California, will decide the future of the state’s congressional district lines. Proposition 50, the sole measure Aztecs will vote on, asks for a temporary change in the way voters are grouped together to choose congress representatives at the federal level until they are redrawn in 2030.
This process of changing congressional districts to benefit one’s party is commonly known as gerrymandering.
The Associated Students initiative Rock the Vote has been doing good work for democracy, registering students to vote and providing presentations to various student associations. AS Vice President of External Affairs, Abby McLachlan, said that SDSU students’ opinions are important.
The Rock the Vote initiative intends to increase voting participation and engagement among SDSU students. On their website, where students can find information on how to register to vote in different states, they assert their commitment “to ensuring that students have the opportunity, education and resources to vote safely and securely, and to be advocates for their community.”
“My hope is that every student comes to understand the true power of their voice,” McLachlan said in an email.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has led the effort behind Prop 50, has framed the new maps as a response to the White House’s efforts to change districts in red states. The pro-Prop 50 Official Voter Information Guide (OVIG) argument alleges the measure will “Counter Donald Trump’s scheme to rig next year’s congressional election and reaffirms California’s commitment to independent, nonpartisan redistricting after the next census.”
On the opposite camp, California Republicans say in the OVIG that the proposition will remove “safeguards that keep elections fair, (…) requirements to keep local communities together, and (…) voter protections that ban maps designed to favor political parties.”
A “Yes” on Prop 50 will allow the State’s Legislature to redraw California’s congressional maps for the 2026 midterm elections. The redrawn maps will expire in 2030, when the California Citizens Redistricting Commission will regain authority.
For the California Democratic Party, Prop 50 is a response to President Donald Trump and Texas legislators’ redrawing of Texas congressional maps in order to gain more seats for the Republican Party in 2026.
A “No” vote on Prop 50 will keep the congressional maps in California as they are now.
According to the Vote No on Prop 50 initiative, “California shouldn’t follow Texas and other states to gerrymander its congressional maps.”
The deadline to register online for the Nov. 4 election was Oct. 20, but California offers same-day conditional registration. McLachlan said that to register on polling day, people need to register at their designated in-person voting center.
On-campus voting will be at the ballot drop-off box set up in the Conrad Prebys Aztec Student Union in front of Oggi’s Pizza. Aztecs who have received their ballots by mail can drop them off at this location.
“By taking just a few minutes to vote, students can play an active role in building the kind of future they want to see,” McLachlan said.
To find out their voter registration status, California residents can visit the My Voter Status website.
