Front Cover of Booklet by Intro to Presidency Class.
@MU_JASPERSVOTE / INSTAGRAM
By Emmanouel Sofillas; Assistant Sports Editor
In an event held on campus last Tuesday, Oct. 29, students from Margaret Groarke, Ph.D.’s political science class, The U.S. Presidency, hosted a special event in tandem with Jaspers Vote to celebrate and promote awareness for the upcoming presidential election.
Held in front of Squeri Hall, the event featured the debut of an election information booklet, which the students had researched and compiled as part of their semester project.
Reflecting on the journey that led to the creation of the election information booklet, Groarke shared how its inspiration sparked from an initiative she heard about at another college.
“I met somebody who does this at another college, and I was like, ‘That’s a good idea’,” Groarke said. “So I talked to my US Presidency class about it, and they were game. So we talked about what issues should we include and they each took an assignment to research a single issue, and we pulled together a lot of information.”
Gabrielle Blair, a senior philosophy major who worked on the project, explained the purpose of the booklet, highlighting its role as a resource for student voters. Blair noted that it covers key topics like candidate backgrounds and major policy issues.
“We have abortion, gun policy, climate change, economic policy, foreign policy, and probably any issue you might be concerned about in this election is all in this data that we collected,” Blair said.
Blair also discussed the process that went into the booklet, emphasizing the hard work each student put into making the booklet a comprehensive guide.
“Each of us was assigned an issue in this upcoming election and had to do extensive research on it. We then compiled all the information into this booklet, and then we all formatted it together,” Blair said.
Groarke explained the purpose behind the booklet, noting its aim to help students understand each candidate’s stance on key issues.
“The purpose is really to try to give people a sense of where the candidates stand on the issues,” Groarke said. “There’s a little bit of information about what they’ve done on some of the issues so that people can choose right like people might have different points of view. You can decide, based on where you stand, which one of them wins your support.”
Lucia Villasante Mata, a student in the U.S. Presidency class, emphasized the importance of providing reliable information, highlighting the dangers of misinformation online.
“Some people will put information out there that is not real and that is biased, and you might believe it just by looking at a quick Google search. So many people fall into this, and we want to make it easier for everyone,” Mata said.
Groarke shared her enthusiasm for continuing the project in the future, suggesting it could be useful for local elections where information might be harder to find.
“I really think this might be fun to do again, maybe with a lower profile election where there’s less information available, like in the spring, New York City residents will be voting in mayoral primaries,” Groarke said. “So that might be a great opportunity for us to have people learn about who the mayoral candidates are.”
The Jaspers Vote event and election booklet equipped MU students with key insights for informed voting. Groarke and her class hope to expand this effort to local elections, fostering a more engaged campus community.