Voters will determine the country’s course of direction in the upcoming presidential election.

Eligible Bruins can visit Los Angeles voting centers between Oct. 26 and Nov. 5 to cast their vote for the presidential election taking place Nov. 5. While many processes and concerns remain similar to past years, this year’s election includes several changes influenced by the recent political climate and technological advancements.

Chloe Garton, a third-year English and public affairs student and the chair of BruinsVote, said voting processes on campus differ slightly this year. She added that although polling places and staffing have stayed the same, UCLA increased the number of mail-in ballot drop-off boxes from one to multiple, including several USPS pickup centers around campus.

Having more ballot drop-off boxes improves accessibility for student voters who Garton said are becoming increasingly interested in politics.

“I think there has been a big uptick in interest around politics since then (2020), particularly the presidential election,” Garton said.

Richard Hasen, a law professor and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project, said the increasingly polarized political climate can motivate higher voter engagement, sometimes even for the sake of voting against a candidate.

“Negative partisanship is a very powerful driver of people’s interest in voting,” Hasen said. “Voter turnout is up because people think that the stakes in elections are very high.”

However, numbers show voting interest in younger groups is similar to 2020. According to a recent study conducted by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School, 53% of young Americans ages 18-29 said they are certain to vote in the upcoming election. These results mirror a similar poll the institute conducted in 2020, in which 54% of youth voters said they were likely to vote.

Whether new or returning in this year’s election, voters will cast their vote based on a number of interests and concerns pertinent to the country’s current economic, social and political state.

A Pew Research Center report states that the economy has been the most important issue for voters in the 2020 and 2024 elections because of ongoing concerns about the rising cost of living.

The report also found that while there was a 21% increase in Republican Party voters who viewed immigration as an important issue since the last presidential election, there was a 7% decrease among Democratic Party voters. According to another Pew Research Center report, the United States’ immigrant population increased by 1.6 million in 2023. This increase denoted the largest yearly growth since 2000 and contributed to increased voter interest in the matter.

Additionally, the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, which ended federal abortion rights for the first time in nearly 50 years, has shifted voters’ concerns, according to the 2024 election Pew Research Center report. Almost double the interest from the last election, 67% of Democratic Party voters this year cited abortion as an important issue to their vote. On the other hand, there was a decrease by 11% in Republican Party voters since the last election who cited abortion as a significant subject of concern this year.

Furthermore, technological advancements have a growing role in voting, especially in this year’s election.

Noopur Raval, an information studies assistant professor, said social media’s creation of echo chambers – an environment containing content that only reinforces a user’s existing opinions and beliefs – continue to influence politics. Newer technologies such as deepfakes, or artificially generated content, have recently gained prevalence in election discourse, she added.

This year alone, states instituted 151 bills regulating the use of deepfakes in voting, with 19 states, including California, passing their bills into laws as of July 31.

On Sept. 17, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act of 2024, which requires large media platforms to censor posts containing deceptive and artificially generated content related to elections in California. The increased legislations to regulate technology for this year’s election highlight the unprecedented accessibility of online resources and the influence they can have on voters, according to NBC.

With every election, voters have new information and circumstances to learn about and analyze. Despite how complicated voting may seem, Garton said she encourages Bruins – some of whom will be voting for the first time this upcoming election – to cast their vote.

“I do understand that it is stressful and it’s contentious, and there are a lot of reasons why people might not want to vote,” Garton said. “But I really do think that everyone should.”