Senator Tammy Baldwin addresses students before leading a walk to the City Center to vote early.
Photo by Allegra Taylor
On Thursday, Oct. 20, an early voting rally took place in the Warch Campus Center Cinema, featuring Senator Tammy Baldwin as speaker. She was introduced by sophomore Miranda Salazar, who gave a personal anecdote on the importance of voting and how she opened up dialogues with her family and friends who were choosing not to vote and convinced them otherwise.
Senator Baldwin stressed the importance of early voting, and particularly the importance of voting not just for presidential candidates, but also for congressional candidates. As a senator, working with her more conservative counterpart is difficult. With Russ Feingold, Baldwin stressed the ability that she would have to work with her fellow senator in Congress.
Junior Dan Thomas-Commins was impressed with Senator Baldwin’s performance, saying that she “made a really good case for the policies she was trying to put forward.” Commins said it was inspiring to have someone speak about the benefits of running for office. “It’s such a maligned idea in this time and seems so out of reach and difficult with social media. It’s hard to put yourself out there,” but Baldwin spoke about the rewards of that intimidating process.
Government offices, Baldwin says, are often held by those with the means to take time off of work and do not represent the demographic that they are supposed to. Often state legislative positions are won and lost by just a few votes, and so any vote makes a huge difference.
Sophomore Gillian Hines said that Senator Baldwin was “such a cool person and it was so exciting to get to meet her and talk with her. She really took time to speak to students one on one. I got to talk to her for a long time, which showed how much she really cared what young voters have to say.”
Early voting is Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at City Hall until Nov. 4. You can register there if you bring your voter ID.