With the Nov. 3 midterm elections approaching, UCLA’s undergraduate student government is working to help students understand their ballots, register to vote and access voting resources.

Cecilia Choy, the Undergraduate Students Association Council’s external vice president, spoke with campus politics editor Nicholas Mouchawar about her office’s nonpartisan voter guide and outreach efforts.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Daily Bruin: What is USAC doing to prepare students for the 2026 midterm elections?

Cecilia Choy: Ashley, our transfer student representative, had her own voter registration drive and was tabling on Bruin Walk, so really glad to see the midterms being promoted across the entire USAC.

Personally, my office, I ran on a platform of electoral education, and really, that means voter education. What I wanted to do was create this voter guide – completely nonpartisan, so it’s just informational – but about the different candidates and the different races. This is comprehensive to basically everything that is on the ballot except for the judge positions. It just has the candidates, their platforms or the props, and what voting “yes” means on it, or voting “no” means on it. I know it’s very hard to stay updated as to what candidate is doing this, or what does this prop do, and so hopefully this voter guide just really simplifies this information.

The last thing we’ve been doing is trying to highlight another vote center. In September, we got an email from Lindsey Horvath’s office for an 11-day vote center. Unfortunately, UCLA could not accommodate to that, which was a little bit disappointing. But hopefully, we are now fighting for a vote center – a vote pop-up right next to Pauley – on the day of election, November 3.

DB: Where can students find the voter guide if not receiving it in person?

CC: We have been tabling. We’re also going to be releasing these images on our Instagram, so they’re very accessible to people. We’re also going to be releasing our EVP website, where we have all of our information.

Our voter guide is comprehensive, so the entire thing is going to be on our website and accessible online.

DB: What has the turnout been like at these outreach events that you have held and these efforts that you are responsible for?

CC: The whole point of USAC is to be a leader that is representative of the students on campus, but we can’t be representative of students if they don’t even know where we are, where we’re located. That was a huge platform that I ran on, and something that I wanted to do to actually accomplish that is to make that outreach effort myself.

Early on in the summer, I emailed all of our mother organizations, our resource centers on our campus to set up a meeting and to just connect in that way, in preparation for the midterms elections, the regents, different efforts and initiatives that we have.

Engagement itself differs. It is true that some people are more inclined to vote, and some people aren’t. What has got people the most interested is when we tell them that the governor themselves appoints the regents. We usually get the question of, ‘Who are the UC Regents,’ and then that leads to the UC regents are our governing board that is constitutionally autonomous, and I think usually, that gets people pretty interested in who our governor is.

DB: Why would you say it’s important for students to be politically active?

CC: Everyone should have the right to express their opinion, to express their voice. In government, specifically, America has had a long history and continues to have a history of disenfranchising people. Those who do have a voice and who are able to make that change should absolutely go ahead and do so.

A huge missing piece of that is information that people who are eligible to vote don’t have that information to do so, and so that’s what my office serves to do – to really plug that in for people and to simplify the elections so people can express their opinions and what they want.

Secondly, for us as UC students, I think it’s super important because the UC is constitutionally autonomous. However, they are very much interested in the governor because the governor appoints our UC Regents, and so that race specifically is super important to us. That’s just one of the many reasons that our students should go out to vote.

DB: Is there anything else that you would like to shed light on that we haven’t necessarily covered yet?

CC: We have been in talks with the Afrikan Student Union with their chair Maleeyah and their vice chair Amariah, and they have very kindly invited us to table with them for their midterm initiatives and to present with them on the regents as well. We want to come and table and to collaborate in really any capacity.

In general, voting is super important. If you haven’t registered in California, you can register the day of.

Recently, my counterpart Jack Feng was able to receive letters of support from Karen Bass and one of our California assemblymembers in support of the UCLA Childcare and to oppose its closing.

When we elect these officials, they’re able to use their voice and amplify and help bring our voices to life as well. That’s just something that’s super important, and we need to continue to get our voice out there.