New McHenry Museum exhibit showcases California’s past elections, inspires Modesto voters

A new McHenry Museum exhibit, “California Votes: Exercise Your Right!” features historical items from past elections and valuable information in English and Spanish on the history and process of voting in English and Spanish.

On Friday, the Modesto Art Museum honored volunteers who helped make the exhibit possible.

Modesto Mayor Sue Zwahlen, State Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, and field representatives from Rep. John Duarte’s and Assemblyman Juan Alanis’ offices attended to celebrate and presented certificates to the volunteers.

“I am delighted to see this beautiful exhibit,” Zwahlen said. “The way I see it is as motivation for people to vote. If they are not registered to vote, they need to register and study the issues.”

Randy Siefkin, a member of the Modesto Art Museum’s board of directors and a retired political science instructor at Modesto Junior College, loaned many of the items on display from his personal collection.

When he saw an exhibit in Pleasanton a couple of years ago, he bid to get something like that here — in a bigger space with more local items.

“I thought, let’s do it with more local sorts of things,” Seifkin said. “It was an opportunity to curate stuff, get stuff out of boxes and rediscover things I had.”

Sue Seifkin, a former Superior Court judge and Modesto City Council member, was excited to see how the museum exhibit turned out. “I have never seen it look better,” she said. “And I love all the bunting and balloons and extra touches that the staff has installed here.”

On the wall, among many others, are her own campaign bumper stickers from when she ran for City Council in the 1970s.

“People should come and take a bit of time to look through it and see what’s here because it’s a history of democracy in action here in Stanislaus County,” she said.

Justin Farkas, a field representative for Alanis, came to give the volunteers certificates and look around the exhibit.

“I was born and raised here, the assemblyman was born and raised here, so I think it brought back many memories from my experience working in the political world and watching how the Valley has changed over time,” he said.

Full-size replicas of suffragettes, political buttons, outreach materials and photos line the walls in display cases. The local chapter of the League of Women Voters and the NAACP presented news clippings and photos from Modesto’s political history.

Something highlighted was the need for more eligible voters to participate in California as a whole and the Central Valley in particular. In the last general election, only 36% of those eligible turned out to vote.

Laurie Carley, a League of Women’s Voters Services Committee member and co-president of the Stanislaus chapter, is working to register more community members.

“When you take a look at the number of registered voters and the number of people who vote, there is a very unhealthy correlation between those two things,” Carley said

Marsha Waggoner, president of the Stanislaus League of Women Voters, said she wants to increase voter turnout in the 18-40-year-old demographic.

“My goal is to make sure people know their voice still matters and to make sure everyone has a voice,” she said.

Exhibit Envoy, a nonprofit that provides traveling exhibits to institutions, provided text displays of practical information about California history and voting, but the museum staff came together to curate everything else.

“We got to enjoy taking all of the fun ephemera and things and putting it together where it can fit within that text,” said Jessica Flores, the museum’s cultural services program manager and head curator of the exhibit. “It was really exciting to pull documents from 1975 from our collection that have not seen the light of day since they were donated.”

While John Duarte’s field representative, Christan Santos, surveyed the space, he said he appreciated that the exhibit helped demystify California politics.

“I went to high school here in Modesto. I think a lot of students could benefit from going to an exhibit like this,” he said.

The exhibit is up through Nov. 10 and features display items dating back to the beginning of Modesto and the state of California.

The McHenry Museum is at 1402 I St., Modesto. It is open Fridays through Sundays from noon to 4 p.m. Admission is free.

This story was originally published October 1, 2024 at 12:49 PM.