Campus Election Volunteers

A passerby here, a passerby there. This is the life of an election worker trying to spread the word about their respected candidates on campus. Sometimes you get the attention of students, sometimes they pass you by because they’re just disinterested or busy. Either way, people volunteer their time to try and disperse knowledge of each presidential candidate…FOR FREE. They get nothing out of it; no reward, no money, no freebies. However, for senior Julia Camara Calvo, her reward for doing this task is meeting people that are interested in the cause and convincing people to vote.

Julia was born in Spain and cannot vote. She enjoys talking about Obama because if she could vote, that is who she would vote for. She was approached by the Obama headquarters at an on-campus vote rally, called Vote Jam, to be a table worker for an Obama table outside of the student service center. She declined at first but quickly changed her mind. She now has been spreading the word of Obama for a couple of weeks and enjoys meeting people she can relate to on Obama issues. “Just meeting people who are interested in politics is reward enough for me. Working for the Democratic party helped educate me on various aspects of the election,” Julia said.

Julia also talked about how spreading the word is not always easy. “If we don’t take the initiative to go up to people and ask them who their voting for or if they know where to vote, then a lot of people would be lost and we wouldn’t be doing our job,” she explains. “Talking about the election to even one person, making one person vote come Election Day, is the best thing we can do,” she adds.

So next time you see Julia or for that matter anyone trying to “bother” you with “non-sense” election information, consider stopping and listening to them for one second because after all, it is your world, your president, and hey, your vote.