Student Government collaborates with The President’s Office, The Department of Political Science and International Affairs, Guarini Institute, and Student Engagement to organize the event.
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By Malia Dustin | Newsreporter
One hundred and forty-eight students attended the U.S. Election Overnight Watch Party organized by Student Government (SG). At the time Vice President Kamala Harris and Former President Donald J. Trump contended for the 47th president seat of the United States, with a difference of 86 electoral votes in favor of Trump and his tight win of the popular vote.
More than 150 million Americans voted and close to 90 million Americans did not vote, about 36 percent of the country. Read more.
SG brought back the watch party tradition at Tiber Café with 19 faculty members supporting the event and nine members of the press in attendance. SG students collaborated with the President’s Office, the Department of Political Science and International Affairs, Guarini Institute, and Student Engagement to organize this event.
In an email invitation to students, faculty and staff, SG stated that they were committed to bringing the community together for the “monumental occasion.”
The event in Frohring Campus was held from 10:30 p.m. to 7 a.m. where attendees were able to sign-in from 9:45 p.m. until midnight, when only exiting was permitted and no one was allowed to enter the campus.
“[I wanted] to experience an election in a foreign country,” said Carter Ross, a first-year study abroad student from Northeastern University majoring in Business Administration and Law. He said this experience was something he thought he wouldn’t get to do many times in his life.
The event opened with speeches starting with JCU President Franco Pavoncello, Student Government President Sebastian Terrazas and Vice President Harman Singh.
“Whichever side you land on, this is going to be a space where everyone comes together,” said Singh.
The evening continued with U.S. themed jeopardy games followed by a panel lecture of JCU professors from the Department of Political Science.
The panel lecture started at 12:45 a.m. opening with Professor Federigo Argentieri, Adjunct Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Guarini Institute for Public Affairs; followed by Dean Pamela Harris, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs; and closing with Professor Andrea Moudarres, Lecturer in Political Science.
External guests included Comparative Politics Professor at Brunel University of London, Jeffery Karp, and Political Science Professor at Roma Tre University, Daniele Fiorentino.
The experts discusses the future of the United States democracy, how the election is viewed through teaching Political Science at JCU, and how the recent election made teaching this subject more complex too.
Professor Harris said that she was “so impressed” to be giving a lecture to a group of students at 1:30 a.m. She said that she doesn’t know if she could be that “focused” and “polite” if she were the students listening to a politics lecture at one in the morning.
“There were so many Italian students, and everyone was just together,” said Professor Harris.
In the lecture panel, Harris addressed the divide and polarization of recent years in U.S. democracy. She said Americans “need to continue fighting for their freedom and their democracy no matter what the outcome of the election is.”
Upon arrival and after signing-in with SG Secretary Malia Sanchez, attendees were handed a free coffee ticket to be used at the Tiber Café.
Food and refreshments were available throughout the night and into the morning. Popcorn and an assortment of chips were handed out to the tables by Tiber Café staff.
This overnight viewing tradition of the U.S. elections at JCU dates back to Barack Obama’s re-election in 2012. The tradition continued once the next four years passed and landed on the election between President Donald J. Trump and Former U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton in 2016. It came to a halt during the election between Trump and Joe Biden in 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“My grandpa was a congressman, so I have always been involved in politics,” said Maria Lousia, a JCU degree seeker from Brazil studying Business Administration. “I saw this as an opportunity to understand more about [U.S. politics] and also connect with people from everywhere.”
Throughout the course of the semester, SG supported students voting from abroad by helping them fill out their ballot properly, making sure it was correctly sealed. They also took students in groups to the Posteitaliane to send the ballots out.
“It’s a really complicated process going through the election law of each state,” said Singh.
SG also worked with Student Engagement to bring Vote from Abroad back in on three separate days to help.
According to TIMES, at least 4.4 million people live outside the Unites States, and around 2.8 million of these are eligible to vote in U.S. elections, but small fraction actually votes.
Read Special Report of Voting From Abroad by Ava Votto
U.S. 2024 Elections by AP
Voters & Voting and Voter’s Evaulations by Pew Research Center
Statistics & Facts by Statista
How Many People Didn’t Vote in the 2024 Election?
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