With two weeks left until the 2024 general election, Temple Student Government hosted a voter education town hall at the Howard Gittis Student Center on Monday, with a special appearance from City Councilmember Isaiah Thomas.
Lourdes Cardamone, TSG’s Chief of External Affairs and president of Temple Democrats, planned the town hall hoping to influence students to vote in the upcoming election on Nov. 5. With Thomas’ help, the event aimed to encourage students to vote and educated them on its significance.
“I just want to get young people excited and empowered and motivated to get out the vote,” said Cardamone, a junior political science major. “Go vote, get mobilized to vote. It’s easier to get registered to vote than it is to actually get to the polls. And so that’s sort of our next step.”
The town hall event began with opening statements from Cardamone, followed by a presentation from Temple Votes, the university’s non-partisan voter registration organization, and a segment from the Office of the Dean of Students. Two presenters urged students to make a plan to vote and taught first-time voters how to cast their ballots. Thomas addressed the roughly 100 attendees to conclude the town hall.
Cardamone held a similar town hall last year which resulted in around one thousand students registering to vote. However, she recognizes registration is only the first step. Cardamone said student difficulties in accessing urban polling booths prevent younger generations from voting and she hopes to lift this barrier by developing and offering resources.
During the event, Thomas further encouraged students to not solely vote in the Nov. 5 presidential election, but for all elections. He recalls the City Council election in 2011, which current City Councilman president Kenyatta Johnson won by a small margin of 27 votes.
“If one person that was here today decides to push one person to go out and vote that might not necessarily have planned or vote, and the job is done in it,” Thomas said. “So at the end of the day, that’s the goal. We are pounding the pavement, doing the best that we can.”
He also referenced the overturning of Roe v. Wade in his speech as motivation for students to vote.
“I never thought that I would come to a college campus and tell college students that a woman’s right to choose is on a ballot,” Thomas said. “For a 40-year-old man, that’s kind of crazy to me. My father is turning 75 in a couple days, and at the end of the day, like [Roe V. Wade is] one of the things that his generation is the most proud of, is that it was a battle that they won.”
In an effort to remain bipartisan, Thomas encouraged students from all ends of the political spectrum to vote, whether their politics lined up with his own or not.
Students in attendance felt events like these are necessary to remind students to vote. Brenna Veitz, a sophomore speech language hearing and science major, cast her ballot by mail yesterday and still attended the event to learn more about what resources are available to her.
“For a lot of students, if it wasn’t publicized and people aren’t given the information, people tend to forget whether it’s something in their own kind of world,” Veitz said.
Out-of-state students attended to learn more about changing their voter registration to Pennsylvania and encourage others to do the same. Gabriella Natale, a senior media studies and production major, is from NJ and changed her voter registration to Pennsylvania to make her vote count for a swing state, rather than the traditionally blue state she originates from.
Natale encourages people to vote even when they feel like their vote won’t count.
“I think [the election] is gonna be so close,” Natale said. “I think the last couple of elections have been very politically divided. And I think one way or the other people should make that known, and not just skip voting because they feel like it doesn’t happen.”
Cardamone doesn’t plan to end her campaign for student voters here. She and Temple Democrats will be hosting multiple parades from the Bell Tower to the polling booths to offer students a pathway to the polls.
She also condemns Temple for hosting classes on Election Day, potentially hindering students from casting their vote.
Last year, Temple released a poll asking if students would prefer to have Election Day off and shorten their fall break or keep their fall break as is and have classes on Election Day. Students voted to keep fall break as is.
“It was very much an ultimatum,” Cardamone said. “And it was a very rigged and set up the answer and it wasn’t convenient or the outcome we were looking for. So this is why we’re trying to encourage a roundabout way of ways to get to the polls.”
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