Francisco, “Cisco” Aguilar, Nevada’s Secretary of State, visited the University of Nevada, Reno on Sept. 25. The visit was part of “Discussions in Democracy,” a series of events hosted by the Associated Students of the University of Nevada.
The Secretary of State, elected every four years, supervises elections across the state and maintains official records for the executive branch and the legislature. The position is also the third-highest ranking in the state after the governor and lieutenant governor, according to the Secretary of State’s website.
After being introduced by Brian Sandoval, president of the university, Aguilar answered questions by students covering digital voting, new voting machines and budget spending.
“I’ve been everywhere talking to youth,” Aguilar said when asked why he came to the university. He stressed the importance of voting here, describing Washoe County as “a battleground county in a battleground state.”
The Discussions in Democracy series is part of a larger push by ASUN and the Center for Student Engagement called “Vote Pack,” intended to encourage more students to vote this November. Vote Pack also includes their voter registration portal, links to voter resources and a mailing address for students to use when they register to vote if their primary residence is outside of Washoe County.
“[We had] about 72 percent voter turnout from University of Nevada students… in the 2020 general election,” Dawson Deal, president of ASUN, said. “Elections can be determined by only a couple thousand votes… and when we have a population of seventeen thousand plus undergraduate students on top of our graduate students, that can have a significant influence.”
“Discussions in Democracy” continued later in the week on Thursday, Oct. 3, as Cathrine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Senator, and Sandoval led a discussion focused on Latino and Hispanic engagement in politics.
Wade Widmann can be reached via email at peregrineh@unr.edu or on Instagram via @NevadaSagebrush.
