It’s the first Tuesday in November, and that means it’s Election Day. Some individuals may be dreading it and some may be ecstatic for it.
Members of the Service, Leadership and Community Engagement Organization (SLCE) are some of the excited ones. As part of its Pokes Vote initiative, SLCE has booked the Wyoming Union for a livestreamed Election Watch Party from 7 to 9 p.m. tonight in an effort to increase college students’ engagement with their government. The polls are open for voting from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today, with election results expected soon after.
Those age 18 to 25 are typically an underrepresented voter body due to their lack of engagement with the democratic system. Therefore, SLCE is advertising the importance of the election and also enticing individuals with door prizes, trivia, plinko games and appetizers. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to attend, though only about 50 students are expected to attend due to it being a midterm election instead of a larger event like a presidential election.
Some students are already planning to watch election results roll in at the Union.
“I do plan on going to the Pokes Vote Watch Party,” said UW Political Science major Colleen Floyd. “Pokes Vote was the first political program I got involved with on campus and it has since inspired the rest of my political involvement at UW. Politics can be so partisan, but civic engagement and young voter turnout is something everyone can rally together for regardless of political party.”
SLCE has also been aiming to improve student engagement and accountability with the political process by handing out “commit to vote” cards for students to sign. The cards also include information about the polling locations.
“Some of them are two parts. You sign and commit and then take the information with you, and then right before November sixth you’ll get your commitment side back,” said Floyd.
Taylor Means, the graduate coordinator of SLCE and UW alumnus, is heading up the watch party event. He coordinated the venue and food, advertised the event to the public and communicated with all office and staff members to run the event smoothly from start to finish.
“For events like these it’s really about both the big and small picture at the same time,” said Means. “You need to know overall what what you want to accomplish with your event, but then you need to break it up into smaller details in order to fulfill your goals for it.”
Therefore, Means and his team have thought of every small detail, like when to give out the door prizes, and every big detail, like what to do if the Union is not properly set up for live streaming. The team also includes SLCE senior project coordinator Richard Robinson, and student coordinators Alex Jacobson and Connor Bergman who have organized past SLCE events.
