Long Beach City College hosted a virtual Election Night 2020 Watch on Tuesday. The watch party was hosted by Vivian Linderman, an instruction and reference librarian at LBCC.
Students and various participants of the public were tuned into several news broadcasts and news networks while still being on the Zoom call.
Some also watched the coverage on news networks like MSNBC, CNN, or just followed up with the election votes on social media.
During the livestream, Linderman would periodically ask presidential trivia questions and would give away prizes to those who answered them correctly.
Walter Hammerworld, a journalism professor at LBCC, and Jerome Hunt, a political science professor at LBCC, both gave their insight to help students gain a deeper understanding of the news coverage on election night.
Students were open to ask any questions they wanted about news coverage and the different states’ election voting regulations.
Hunt said he hoped we would know who the winner would be on Election Night, but it depends on the states since elections are done by state law, and the states control it.
“Florida is the state who is always close, and the state who doesn’t accept late ballots,” said Hammerworld.
According to a report by ABC News, Election Day turned into election week because of the counting votes continuing across the U.S. And either candidate, Biden or Trump needs 270 Electoral College votes to become President.
Hunt said, “We have to change how we fundamentally do things in this country if we want to see the voter numbers increase.”
Most states created friendlier ways for people to vote by mailing in their ballots, dropping ballots into drop boxes, or going into arenas, and it shows how the future election should be once we are out of the pandemic.
It allows many different ways to still have your voice be heard, said Hammerworld.
According to the New York Times, 97 million Americans voted before Election Day, and it is equal to two-thirds of the votes casted in the 2016 Election.
However, Hammerworld said, “With the record turn out, if you give people the chance to vote conveniently, plenty of more people will decide to vote.”
California had a 99.9% chance of going to Biden, and we did.
California has been a blue state in most election votings in the past, said Hammerworld.
Hunt said, “For the students who attend LBCC, you should at least take a government class and attend some similar political type of events that have to do with politics and talk to other individuals about your opinions on politics. Because we have to stop being so unwilling to talk about politics and voice our opinions.”
Talk politics all the time to your friends, talk to strangers about politics, but also be very respectful about people’s opinions as well ,said Hammerworld.
The Electoral college meets on December 14 of this year, which is elected President Day. The president will be inaugurated on January 20.
The get out and vote effort wasn’t as strong for Biden versus how it turned out for Trump, said Hunt.
Both Hammerworld and Hunt predicted the election would continue.
It may be days, weeks, or even months before we figure out who will become our 46th President of the United States, because the 2020 election will be a close win and a close loss this year.
The watch party event only lasted from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m. since the results were still unclear at that point.
Here is the Zoom link if you missed the virtual event: