The Tartan

By Yana Danzig, Audrey Weiss, and Tali Yakopson

Carnegie Mellon students may have seen the numerous popup stands of voting registrars as they’ve returned to campus. With the upcoming presidential election, there has been much encouragement for students to use their voices, educate themselves on their country, and register to vote.

This past week, Kamala Harris brought her campaign to Pittsburgh, meeting with local Democratic leaders, encouraging voter turnout, and reinforcing the party’s positions on key issues before traveling to Philadelphia to debate against former President Donald Trump.

Kamala choosing to do her debate preparation in Pittsburgh was no thoughtless decision: Pennsylvania is perhaps the most important swing state of this election, which is why so much election attention has been focused in Pennsylvanian communities.

While a push to get people out to vote in Pennsylvania has been one focus of the candidates, the more specific demographic of young voters has gained lots of attention in the past couple of election cycles.

All of the voting registration opportunities on campus build into a larger scheme of trying to get younger populations civically involved. A Tufts study analyzing voter data found that 53 percent of eligible Pennsylvanian voters (ages 18–29) voted in the 2020 presidential election.

Beyond registration initiatives, another way that students were encouraged to get involved with the election was with debate watch parties that took place Tuesday, Sept. 10.

Numerous watch parties took place on campus for the presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. Both partisan and nonpartisan events were held, attended by a diverse group of Carnegie Mellon students.

Organizations such as the Carnegie Mellon Democrats and Carnegie Mellon Republicans provided snacks and a space for students to watch, discuss, and analyze the debate with those of similar political beliefs.

Timothy Wu, first-year master student, stated that he was “curious to see how the debate goes,” was hoping to gain insight into peer perspectives, and “hear how the two presidents vary on their takes on topics/the current state of the world.”

A nonpartisan event was held in the McConomy auditorium in the Conan University Center with pizza and debate bingo sheets for audience members. Although the event was officially unaffiliated from a political party, the majority of cheers and applause from the audience seemed to come in response to Harris.

All three locations had near-capacity turnouts, although people in McConomy trickled out after each of the six Wi-Fi outages between 9:24 p.m. and 10:38 p.m. Whether they were deterred by the technical outages or left after finishing their free pizza remains unknown.

Those students who stayed in each of the locations found ways to fight off tech issues and find community even in the realm of a divisive subject. When the broadcasted live streams cut out, students would pull up live streams that people could watch over their shoulder.

When asked how he felt dealing with the outages, a representative from AB Tech explained, “The first time, I was a little stressed, but when you figured out it was wifi, there’s only so much you can do.”

The debate itself was an event with a lot of build-up. The last debate of this election cycle featured a different Democratic candidate, President Joe Biden, and triggered him to withdraw from the election, leading to the eventual nomination of Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket.

Ever since the nominees were secured, there has also been a lot of conflict over the rules and standards for a debate. As CBS news reported “Trump suggested on multiple occasions that he would not participate at all, criticizing the network. After Harris baited the former president, accusing him of ‘backpedaling’ on the debate, Trump agreed to the Sept. 10 matchup.”

The debate included many comedic moments, as well as moments of conflict between the candidates.

Some of Carnegie Mellon’s watch parties were punctuated dramatically by the technical problems. After Donald Trump said the now-infamous line, “They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats,” the live stream in the CMU Democrat watch party cut off immediately.

Besides moments like this, the Philadelphia “matchup” covered a wide range of issues, though the candidates kept drawing the focus back to commentary on each other, references to the economy, and on Trump’s end, immigration.

While the watch parties gave students the option to separate themselves into comfortable environments along partisan lines, they also encouraged students to coming together as a larger community, despite their ideological differences.