The Democratic Party of Wisconsin hosted an early voting block party at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Library Mall on Friday, encouraging students to register to vote and vote early.
Organizers and volunteers handed out informational pamphlets and directed students to early voting at Memorial Union, which is open weekdays from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. through Nov. 1. Wisconsin democratic chair Ben Wikler attended, along with District 8 Ald. MGR Govindarajan.
Whitman Bottari, communications director for College Democrats at UW-Madison, told The Daily Cardinal over 200 students had already spoken to one or more of the volunteers.
“You can see it makes a difference,” Joe Wendtland, a senior and chair of College Democrats of UW-Madison, told the Cardinal. “We’ve been out tabling for the last four days. Yesterday we were tabling for seven hours. People would talk to us, leave and then come back to tell us they had just voted.”
With just one week until Election Day, WisDems believes it is still possible to make an impact, particularly with those still on the fence about whether they will vote.
“We definitely have conversations with people who are still undecided. We talk to them, find out what their specific issues are. The main one is Gaza. There are lots of people that are skeptical of both administrations, so we try to explain that, if elected, Trump will only encourage more violence. He would basically write a blank check to Netanyahu,” said Kelly Connor, youth field organizer for WisDems.
Neylani and Cynthia, two UW-Madison students passing by the event, told the Cardinal they have not voted yet but plan on voting for Harris in person in their home state of Illinois.
Of the registration efforts, Neylani said, “I think it’s good. We didn’t expect this to be such a big voter school. In Chicago, you don’t see as many people trying to get you to vote.”
Early in-person voting in Wisconsin started on Oct. 22, and on-campus polling locations at Memorial Union, Union South and the Health Sciences Learning Center are open weekdays from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. through Nov. 1.
Marco is a features writer for The Daily Cardinal. He is an English and History major and has experience covering local businesses.
