Eastern Michigan University’s Student Government and the Residence Hall Association hosted an Election Day party in the ballroom of the Student Center to watch the election results live Nov. 6.
“This election viewing celebration is pretty much the fulfillment of a very long and detailed successful civic engagement strategy that we unleashed onto the EMU campus starting as far back as Fajita Fest with voting registration,” said EMU Student Body President Matthew Norfleet.
There were five screens set up around the room, each tuned to a different broadcasting station. Fox News, CNN, MSNBC and ABC News were all featured at the event.
Free food and drinks were given throughout the night, including hamburgers, pizza, hotdogs and red white and blue sugar cookies. As much food as there was, it ran out quite quickly. Many more students came than what Student Government had expected.
Items were also raffled off during the night. The biggest item among these was an iPad mini, which was raffled off after Barack Obama was projected as winning the presidency.
An international student from the Netherlands, Akkelyn Tabak, won the iPad and was very happy.
The students gathered around enthusiastically, counting down to the second for new poll releases. The room soon after exploded with
cheers and scoffs simultaneously.
Benjamin Elmgren, director of communications for Student Government, said, “I would have expected that the issue that students highlighted above everything else was education, and rather than education almost every student that I interviewed about the issues said they were concerned about the economy. I don’t think that that is something that you would have heard in election years past and it’s something that is kind of a change for us.”
Students with all kinds of political views gathered to watch the results, including a group of Green Party supporters.
“I don’t feel like Obama or Romney would do anything radical, so I voted for Jill Stein,” said EMU senior Bily Simons. “I know that she won’t win and my vote won’t make a difference, but I wanted Congress to know that there are people who want more radical changes.”
International students also gathered here to watch the election.
“If I would be able to vote, I would vote for Obama,” said Marle Reimert, an international business major from the Netherlands. “His policies are like our European policies, and they’re proven to work.”
Norfleet was thrilled with the outcome of the event.
“I’m just glad we were able to have an event to where we had an enormous portion of the student body come out and participate, be excited, win things and eat,” Norfleet said. “I mean this was a very, very awesome event; a very, very historic moment for our country and a really proud moment for EMU.”
