Party at the Polls - UM Twin Cities, MN

Hi, it’s Joe from University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

We have had a very busy and largely successful semester at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. We’ve hosted a large outdoor concert, started a website, held a lecture event featuring now prominent Congressman Keith Ellison, printed t-shirts, cosponsored two debates, printed voter guides, and run our usual business of tabling and recruiting. These things all undoubtedly helped to advance the cause of Democracy Matters and retaking democracy. However, none of them had the impact or were as rewarding as our Party at the Polls.

The premise of Party at the Polls was to attract a crowd near the polling place, ultimately increasing turnout. When we were planning our party, we realized that at the U of M, gathering a crowd is never a problem. Every day the central polling place on campus, Coffman Union, is packed with people. The problem with Coffman Union, however, is that most students cannot vote there. We decided to take a different approach. We would take the great mass of confused, would-be-voters and transform them into a mass of informed voters-to-be.

Our Party was planned by a team of five group members with one of them specifically in charge of the event. Besides planning, the preparatory work included renting a tent, ordering pizza, buying groceries, printing information, picking a space, making posters, and securing a permit.

The planning stage was focused on how to efficiently get information out to large numbers of people. Minnesota has the option of same-day registration, so we needed to tell people both how and where to vote. This was complicated by the fact that we needed to know which of the over 10 polling locations near campus to send students.

Our solution was hand-outs and laptops. Each person received a hand-out describing what they needed to register. If that person didn’t know which polling place they belonged at, we found it for them by searching for their address at our Secretary of State’s website.

Activities on election day included setting up the tent, making coffee and hot cocoa, and staffing the tables. For six hours during the day we answered questions, distributed food, found polling places, gave directions, and told people, “No, I’m sorry, you can’t just vote at Coffman Union, you have to go to your precinct.”

A group of foreign visitors stopped by our tent. They had come from south-eastern Asia to observe our elections process and to understand how our democracy functions. They spent a lot of time talking to us just trying to figure out why on earth we were out there. They thought for sure that we must be supporting some party or candidate. That we were there just for democracy, just because we believed that everyone should have their voice represented, even if it differs from our own, was almost too much to get by the language barrier. It was a moment where we had this sudden realization that our work really was affecting something. The Party at the Polls was a direct way for us to help our democracy. Most of our group’s efforts are indirect. They are aimed at education or influencing decisions that promote legislation which would benefit our democracy. By helping people to vote, though, we were working at the ground level of what makes our democracy work. By our best estimates over 700 people stopped by our tent about half of which were missing some piece of essential information. The sheer number of people that we were able to help made us realize that our work really does matter.

Party at the Polls - Gettysburg College, PA

As Election Day grew closer my Democracy Matters chapter was trying to think of a way to get students more excited about the political process. At Gettysburg College we have access to a student “nightclub” called The Attic. Every weekend there are a variety of activities there and it is set up to entertain hundreds of people, if needed. My group and I thought it would be a great idea to have some kind of party in The Attic after the elections to sort of celebrate those who voted. The national Democracy Matters set us up with Working Assets (www.workingforchange.com). This organization has donated over $50 million to non-profit organizations since 1985. They came up with and funded the idea to hold election parties throughout the country at college campuses. This was made possible by working with a few of the Democracy Matters college chapters.

Once we established our coalition with Working Assets we started to plan our own “Party at the Polls.” We wanted to make sure that we could reach out to our unique campus. We are a relatively conservative liberal arts college in a very small town. Our biggest challenge was how to get students to come out to an event on a Tuesday night. Our first idea was to get a live band. This fell through because of the timing of the event so we really needed to think fast to come up with something just as good. We ended up deciding that a DJ and all-you-can-eat wings would bring students out. We also held a raffle with several gift certificates from generous local businesses and an i-Pod shuffle. We thought that a raffle throughout the night would not only pique the interest of students, but possibly also get them to stay throughout the whole event. Everything was planned, now we just needed to pray for nice weather!

We held our election party from 8-10pm in The Attic, and it was a very successful event. We had 130 attendees, many of whom stayed for a good portion of the night. We ate through over 600 wings and gave away over 20 great raffles. Throughout the night we would interrupt the music to raffle off a prize and inform students about who Democracy Matters is and why it should be important to them. Overall, I was very happy with our event. I would have loved to have found a way to get the attendees more involved in our discussion but this is a very hard goal to obtain with a large audience. I also would have enjoyed having a live band and think that it would get the students excited too, especially if the band joined us in our wishes for a strengthened democracy. I learned that organizing an event takes a lot of teamwork. Everyone in the group was really helpful in doing all of those extra tasks that popped up at the last minute; like running to the store for those all too essential salty snacks to go along with our wings! The most important part of planning an event like this is having a great team to help you out. We were all paid off by great food and times at our event.

Devon Marshall

President and Founder, Democracy Matters Gettysburg College Chapter