election reflection

During the entire day of the election, I could not focus! I was unable to do homework or even sit still as I was too anxious and excited. After sitting in the library for forty minutes pretending to do homework (really on Facebook) I left to go vote. I had received my mail in ballot a couple days earlier but filled it out finally and walked over to the polls with a friend. I found that many other people I knew had also requested a mail in ballot or had voted early to not wait in line and possibly interfere with classes or duties. I felt the general excitement during the day along with the feeling of nervousness and anxiety. As I talked to my peers throughout the day, I found out most of them got their information from mainstream as it was so readily available. I got many responses saying that they did not do extra research, in fact were so tires of the election coverage everywhere. I found that interesting because I am always hesitate to believe mainstream since I feel they always say what we want to hear, not what we should hear.

I ended up going to the election party at the Cable center here at DU. Two of my political science professors were available to talk to people about the election and what was happening. The big screen had about 4-6 different channels being displayed. I know for sure we were watching FOX, CNN, CBS, and NBC and the others were in and out. It was interesting to see all channels at the same time, especially when we realized that some networks were faster than others. For example, FOX called a few of the blue states quite a bit before CNN. This is VERY interesting to us. The environment was great, everyone was cheering and praying. I went up to one of my Political Science professors at about 8:40 pm when I asked him if the election would end early. He said by 9:01pm we would know the winner, and sure enough, we had very quick results.

Overall, I think this experience was great and extremely historical. Its amazing how much influence the media has had and that is one of the predominant reasons why people were glad the election was over, the media.