Students receive election results

Many students – supporters of Obama and Sen. McCain alike – gathered at the University Student Commons on Tuesday to watch polls close and results come in as Sen. Barack Obama was declared the president-elect.

Sarah Al-Faresi, an informations systems major, was in the Commons Underground, which was filled with a high-energy crowd of mostly Obama supporters watching CNN on the room’s large projection screen. Al-Faresi says this election is the first time she has been excited about politics.

“I was never into it (politics), but this year I made sure that I’m registered to vote,” Al-Faresi said. “I feel like (for) the past eight years, America (has been) declining more than it should be and I feel like Obama can rebuild that.”

Upstairs in the Richmond Salons, a few tables of mostly McCain supporters gathered to watch Fox News. Mathematics major Steven Latimer was in the room with a map of the United States in front of him. He colored states either blue or red as the results came in.

Latimer says he voted for Bob Barr-the Libertarian candidate for president. However, Latimer says he preferred McCain to Obama because of McCain’s viewpoints on public policy issues.

“I felt that John McCain was the better choice,” Latimer said. “John McCain expressed some limited government sentiment. Democratic candidates sometimes want too much government involvement in society.”

Latimer voted for a third-party candidate because he says voting is a way to make a statement. He still did some volunteer work for the McCain campaign in order to be a part of a campaign that had a greater chance of winning.

Youth involvement was a factor in the election, especially for the Obama campaign. Cinema and history major Courtnay Sellers volunteered for the Obama campaign and says the work done by young people on the campaign made a significant difference.

“I feel like all the hard work that I did, it actually meant something,” Sellers said. “We have come together as a collective unit of people who really wanted change and we really did something about it this time instead of talking about it.”

Sellers says young people also made a difference on the state level.

“They say a Democrat hasn’t taken Virginia in 40 years,” Sellers said. “We (young people) had a huge part in that.”

Donald Knight, director of political affairs for the Student Government Association and a political science and criminal justice double major, got involved with the election process by volunteering for the Obama campaign.

“All summer, I didn’t go out,” Knight said. “All I did was work on the campaign day in, day out. Today I got the privilege and honor of driving my peers here at Virginia Commonwealth University to and from the polls.”

Knight says in total he drove more than 250 students – mostly freshmen – to the polls.

Anthropology major Xavier Underwood partnered with Knight to shuttle students to go vote. He says the Obama campaign was operating 25 vans around VCU, the University of Richmond and Virginia Union University.

“We’re basically providing a free shuttle service . to any students at VCU that really want to get out and go vote,” Underwood said. “A lot of people are afraid because it’s raining right now, or . the polls are too far. So we’re really helping the community.”

Many students exercised their right to vote for the first time Tuesday. For at least one student, however, a day that would have been his first time voting was a disappointment.

Kyle Sutphin, an art education major, was turned away because his registration was never completed.

“I registered right outside of the capital library and the people who registered me didn’t seem to know what to do with it,” Sutphin said. “I lived in one state and had a driver’s license for an entirely different state and had my permanent address in a third state. So, I guess with all that confusion, nothing happened.”

According to a Gallup poll conducted in October, there is little evidence the national average of youth involvement has gone up since the last election in 2004. According to the poll, the percentages of registered voters between 18-29 years old were nearly the same as four years ago. So were the percentages of those who say they had thought a lot about the election and those who said they were likely to vote.

Theater acting major Jennifer Vick, however, says she has seen more student involvement than the 2004 election.

“They’re definitely more active,” Vick said. “A lot of people are really passionate about it, which is different than other elections I have seen before-definitely the last one.”

Catherine MacDonald, News Co-Editor, and Natalie Allen, Photography Editor, contributed to this report.