Long Beach City College is hosting a virtual election night watch party called “Election Night 2020 Watch” hosted by Vivian Linderman, a reference and instruction librarian at LBCC, in hopes of providing “a chance to meet and discuss with other students outside of classes.”
The watch party will be joinable via Zoom on Tuesday at 5 p.m.
Dr. Jerome Hunt, a political-science professor at LBCC, and Walter Hammerworld, a journalism professor at LBCC, will be offering live insight via Zoom to help students reach a deeper understanding of election night news coverage.
“There are so many issues with this election including the mail-in balloting, the handful of swing states, voter suppression challenges, etc.,” said Linderman, who organized the watch party and asked Hammerworld and Hunt to speak within their realms of expertise.
“We are going to let students and various members of the public to watch election results as they come in with us via Zoom and ask questions and get a richer sense of what is going on,” said Hammerworld.
Hunt said he thinks tuning into the watch party will be more insightful versus watching network news, because, “You can get your immediate answers to the questions that you have. Hopefully we will be able to explain what it means for you locally in terms of what is happening … hopefully we can get some information on what the props have to say.”
The event will be available to join via Zoom from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m., and students are encouraged to ask as many questions they would like to make sense of the coverage that will be happening during election night.
“We are interested in the counting of the ballots and show the speeches,” said Hammerworld who has a firm belief that the election will not be called on election night, since many states still need to count mail-in-ballots.
According to a report by the New York Times, nearly 97 million Americans have already voted before Election Day, which equals out to two-thirds of all votes casted in the 2016 election.
“I hope this election cycle will really encourage our students to be more actively involved in the community, that they will seek out the knowledge that they need to be impactful members,” said Hunt.
With the pandemic in its third wave in the U.S. and with nearly 1,000 cases being reported every 24-hour reporting period, events like these will be the norm at least until late 2021.
Information will be provided below to attend the event.
Zoom ID: 919 718 2349
Password: LBCC2020