Students pack Sid Richardson to watch election results

By Hongtao Hu     11/5/24 11:40pm

Around 200 students crowded into the Sid Richardson College commons Tuesday evening, where voting results played out on the commons’ screen. As Massachusetts turned blue, a loud cheer erupted throughout the room.

Sid Richardson, in collaboration with student organizations like RiceVotes, Civic Duty Rice and IGNITE, hosted a university-wide election party this year, the first since 2016. The Center for Civic Leadership used to host election parties before the COVID-19 pandemic, said Sid Richardson magister Melissa Marschall. While there were no watch parties for the 2020 election, RiceVotes hosted one for the 2022 midterms. 

The largest television in the commons displayed live CNN election coverage, while a quad-view of a smaller television provided coverage by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, along with a student-made spreadsheet detailing areas to keep an eye on.

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Sid Richardson president Akshay Sethi said that the college’s large television screens and 300-person-capacity commons made it a prime location for a large-scale watch party. 

“As a civic engagement [representative] and as the president of the college, I wanted to host a watch party in Sid commons, but to make it more of a campus-wide thing,” Sethi, a senior, said.

Sethi said the college received CCL funding to buy dinner and snacks for the event, and coffee was provided alongside a RiceVotes photo booth. 

Bennett Reddig said the watch party was a place to not only support his friends but to also see the culmination of his previous following of polls. 

“I had some friends who were helping run [the event], and I wanted to come to a high-energy environment where there was enthusiasm,” Reddig, a McMurtry College sophomore, said. “I’ve been following the election and polls for the last few weeks, and this felt like an accumulation of all those hours.”

Marschall said that watch parties help stoke engagement among first-time voters.

“Elections are important events and watch parties allow dialogue and debate,” Marschall wrote in an email to the Thresher. “Obviously the TV election coverage includes a lot of information about the Electoral College, election administration, electoral history, election laws, electoral geography, etc. Watching this in a group means students can ask each other questions and delve deeper into these topics. It can be very educational for first-time voters.” 

Victoria Roman said she thought the watch party was a good place to keep track of the first election she could vote in.

“I feel like it’s very important to be present, be participatory and get involved,” Roman, a Duncan College sophomore, said. “The vibe is ecstatic … they’re recording on the TV tiny results that you know aren’t going to be really big, and everyone’s still cheering, so it really gets your spirits up in a time that is very, very nerve-wracking.”

“I think the watch party is a great way to culminate the many months and weeks of talking about the election with friends or talking about politics — something that this generation understands is really close and dear to our own personal goals or values,” Sethi said.

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