Mock Election Held in CU Library

When walking into the library, students’ may have noticed a table with a voting box. Douglas Moore, Information Systems Specialist, states, “All it is is a way for students to vote for who they would pick in the election. It has no bearing, of course, on anything. Just something fun to do on campus.” Connie Shumate, Director of the Marsh Library, set up the fun idea for students. 

    Moore states that the library usually has several events, however, this one hasn’t really been publicized much. But, with this election’s controversy, it would be interesting to see how people vote and how it will compare to the actual election votes. “With the way this election is, it is really polarizing one way or the other. You either hate one of them, or you don’t hate one of them. So it’s just something fun to see how people voted,” he says. A few students gave their personal insight as to how the felt about the voting in the library.

    Ryan Atwell, Junior, said “I thought it was an interesting experience to see it set up in the library. I thought it was a good way to get students’ involved [with] their political views.”

    He believes that Concord’s outcome with be with Clinton. “I think it will be Clinton because Concord is a liberal arts school, and I feel like most of the students’ that go here are liberal,” states Atwell. He states that he hopes the library does this with future elections.

    Jayden Shepherd, Senior, states, “I think it’s a good idea to give students’ a mean to express their political beliefs.”  Shepherd isn’t sure what the outcome of Concord would be. “Concord, from social media, seems split. You have the die-hard Trump [supporters], the die-hard Clinton [supporters], and the people that are still upset over Bernie,” states Shepherd. 

    Tyler D’Angelo, Junior, states, “I feel like this is important because it gives you insight to how your classmates believe and you know who you are surround by, it’s good to have different views and opinions so you can be more open-minded.” 

    D’Angelo agrees with Shepherd, he is also not sure what the outcome will be at Concord. “I probably think the outcome will be Hillary because Concord is a liberal arts college. In my experience, there are a lot of liberals compared to conservatives here,” D’Angelo states.  He thinks it will be interesting to compare the votes here at the university to our state. “It would be interesting to see Concord’s demographic compared to West Virginia’s demographic and how the votes will either be similar or different,” D’Angelo says.

    No matter who is participating, it’s clear that it is a creative idea that gets people thinking prior to the election. Results of the mock election were sent out via email on Monday, November 7. Out of 132 ballots cast here at Concord, Donald J. Trump received 59, Hillary R. Clinton received 38, and the remainder were write-in candidates.