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CHRONICLE PHOTO BY EMMA PETTIT
Chronicle of Higher Education
Student Voting in 2020: ‘Weird Is Probably an Understatement’
Strong early turnout results in quiet polling sites on Election Day
By Nell Gluckman, Emma Pettit, and Michael Vasquez
Nov. 3, 2020
Election Day 2020 will be remembered as a masked affair and, at many colleges, a subdued one.
Nearly 10 million young Americans cast their ballots ahead of Tuesday’s
vote, and the result at campus polling sites was evident. Tufts
University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning
and Engagement said that people ages 18 to 29 made up about a tenth of
the record number of Americans who voted early.
Chronicle reporters who visited colleges in three battleground states
on Election Day found short lines, if any, and calm, determined voters,
as higher ed hunkers down during the resurgent pandemic. They also
found plenty of politically engaged, mask-wearing students who said
they’d taken the advice of organizers and voted early.
The campus of Temple University was relatively quiet on Tuesday
morning, a sunny, cool day in Philadelphia. Classes have been remote
since a spike of cases among students in early September. While some
students stayed near Temple because they’d signed leases in off-campus
apartments, others left town.
So what has the runup to the 2020 elections been like here?
“Weird is probably an understatement,” said Samuel Hall, a junior and
the Temple student government’s director of government affairs.
Philadelphia is a key city in most presidential elections, especially
this one. In 2016, Donald Trump won Pennsylvania, where Joe Biden was
born. For Biden to win the state, he’ll need to see high turnout in
this mostly blue city, a feat that has been complicated by the
president’s baseless claim that Pennsylvania cheats in elections, his
warning that he and his supporters are “watching you, Philadelphia,”
and his campaign’s attempts to videotape voters there. Republicans
recently lost a court fight in which they tried to prevent the state
from receiving absentee ballots after Election Day.
So the city is important. And despite an empty feeling on campus, Hall
said students are motivated. He and his roommates, who are staying in
an off-campus apartment near Temple, all voted early. Even Hall’s rugby
teammates, who don’t always talk politics, are having “productive”
conversations about it.
“You can tell everyone is much more politically minded than they were when we left campus in March,” Hall said.
George Floyd’s killing and Philadelphia’s Black Lives Matter protests
have also contributed to the feeling of political urgency this year,
Hall and other students said. Last week, another Black man, Walter
Wallace Jr., was killed by police officers here, which prompted new
protests, curfews, and arrests.
It’s not to say that something major isn’t lost when much of the
student body is dispersed. As productive as the individual political
conversations have been, Hall said, it’s been hard to get student
groups involved in organizing get-out-the-vote efforts. He’s doing what
he can, though. This week, Hall is one of about three Temple students
who are working as ballot counters in Philadelphia’s enormous
convention center downtown. He was scheduled to start work there
Tuesday afternoon and he doesn’t expect to emerge until 7 a.m.
Wednesday.
Most of the Election Day activity at Temple was focused at the
Liacouras Center, an early voting location where people could still
drop off absentee ballots, and the Bright Hope Baptist Church, a
polling site for the neighborhood’s residents and Temple students who
live on or near campus.
Organizers stood outside the church handing out stickers and telling
people to text three of their friends to encourage them to vote. A poll
worker told people where to go. Students and residents voted steadily
throughout the day, though the only lines were early in the morning.
Some Temple students who did not vote early said it was because they
hadn’t gotten their absentee ballots in time. Jeff Montinar, a
sophomore, did so because it’s midterms week and he thought it would be
easier to go in person. He voted Tuesday afternoon for the first time,
right after taking an exam, he said. Alizee Duloisy, a sophomore from
Ohio, said the days leading to the election had been chaotic and
stressful. She interns at PennPIRG, a research and advocacy group,
where she’s been making phone calls urging people to vote.
“Some people don’t want to hear about it and shut you down,” she said.
“Other people have been really nice about it and like, Oh yeah I’d love
to vote, give me the information.”
Michala Butler, a junior who voted three weeks ago, said some students
left town because they were worried about possible rioting in
Philadelphia. She said that she felt pretty safe, but that she planned
to get home at 8 p.m. and stay in to watch the returns. Downtown,
stores were boarded up and the streets were empty.
If there is violence, people like David Brown, an assistant professor
of instruction in the college of media and communication, will be
called. He’s a pastor and has been trained to de-escalate violent
situations. On Tuesday morning he stopped by the Liacouras Center to
see how things were going. He was dressed for both his jobs, wearing a
Temple mask, a Temple baseball cap, and a Temple windbreaker over a
black shirt with a white pastor’s collar.
Brown’s job as a pastor is taking precedence today, he said. His church
in West Philadelphia is five blocks from where Wallace was killed last
week. He spent the morning criss-crossing the city checking on polling
sites where he said everything was still calm. Polling sites saw long
lines early in the morning, but many had cleared.
“I’m trying to hope and pray that it stays normal,” he said.
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