Ari Citrin/The Hoya
Georgetown University students and community members will vote today in the United States general election.
Both major-party candidates for president have connections to Georgetown. Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, teaches at the Georgetown University Law Center, while several children of Republican candidate and former President Donald Trump attended Georgetown.
The Hoya will be updating this story live as the university and its organizations host events and react to results throughout the day.
Campus Ministry Hosts Interfaith Prayer Service
By Ari Citrin, Hoya Staff Writer
At 4 p.m., students, clergy and community members gathered in Dahlgren Quad for an interfaith prayer hosted by Campus Ministry.
The service featured readings by leaders from Georgetown University’s Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Dharmic and Muslim communities.
Rabbi Ilana Zietman, director for Jewish Life, said that the service, which Campus Ministry hosts on the day of every presidential general election, serves as a way of celebrating interfaith unity amidst contentious elections.
“It’s a way for all the chaplains to come together and express our hope for the country around our elections and democracy,” Zietman told The Hoya. “It’s just a nice way for us to come together on a day that’s always been uncertain and almost has real implications for a lot of people.”
Alongside Zietman and Fr. Greg Schenden, S.J., the director of Campus Ministry, campus faith leaders including director of Dharmic Life Brahmacharini Shweta Chaitanya, Rev. Ebony Grisom and Imam Yahya Hendi also offered prayers.
Schenden said he appreciated continuing the tradition with a new slate of chaplaincy leaders.
“Now, we have three female leaders of our faith communities and it is great to be praying alongside them,” Schenden told The Hoya. “This is what we do at the end of the day in the midst of election season or anything else: we come together and we pray.”
Swing State Voters Hope to Impact National Politics
By Ruth Abramovitz, GUSA Desk Editor, and Evie Steele, editor-in-chief
4:17 p.m.
Many Georgetown University students from swing states voted absentee in the hopes of influencing national politics.
Analysts predict that Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada will be critical states in both candidates’ pushes to win the election.
Catherine Hiemstra (SFS ’27), a Michigan resident, said she hopes her vote can make a difference for the hopes of Vice President Kamala Harris, her preferred presidential candidate, as well as U.S. Senate candidate Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.).
“I love my home state and I wanted my vote to have an impact on more than just the presidential election,” Hiemstra wrote to The Hoya. “More than just voting for myself, I wanted my vote to be for my family (especially my younger sister), my friends who still live in Michigan, and the people I grew up with. I feel a responsibility to them as much as I feel a responsibility to myself.”
Claire Cable (CAS ’27), of Pennsylvania, said her vote in Pennsylvania would be more important than a possible vote in Washington, D.C.
“Frankly, I chose to vote in PA because PA needs my vote,” Cable wrote to The Hoya. “There was no question as to whether I was going to vote in PA or D.C. — I know that my vote is of the utmost importance in PA, and if I can make my voice heard in a place where it matters, I’m going to.”
Cable said her experience growing up in Butler County, Pa., a largely rural county north of Pittsburgh, shaped her decision to vote there.
“Growing up as a queer person in that environment, I’ve seen firsthand the kind of hatred that has crawled out from under its slimy rock and reared its ugly head,” Cable wrote. “It genuinely scares me to think of that hatred persevering.”
Erik Olmen (MSB ’27), who is from rural Wisconsin and voted absentee, said voters in Wisconsin are anxious about the election.
“From my experience back home, we’re not taught to talk about politics in public,” Olmen told The Hoya. “We view it as just something we have to do, so no one really gets excited about it.”
Olmen said he is unable to tell if Wisconsin will lean toward Harris or Trump.
“Wisconsin, specifically, we’re such a purple state that it just varies so much,” Olmen said. “It’s just no matter who I talk to, my friends that I text every day, some might want to vote for Harris-Walz, some might vote for Trump-Vance. So it really depends. I don’t see it swinging one way or another.”
Noah Vinogradov (SFS ’25), of Pennsylvania, felt that it was his civic duty to vote in a state that could make or break the election.
“With our current system, states like Pennsylvania have so much influence and power and I wouldn’t want to give up that responsibility,” Vinogradov told The Hoya. “I don’t like the fact that my vote matters a lot more than someone’s vote in California right now, but the truth is that my vote is really, really important.”
Vinogradov said he has worked to convince people to vote for Harris.
“Between last night and today I convinced three people to go vote for Harris in Pennsylvania,” Vinogradov said. “If enough people do that through knocking doors, phonebanking, et cetera, et cetera, that could flip Pennsylvania and it could flip the whole election.”
ICYMI: Hundreds of GU Students Among Thousands Attending Harris Rally at National Mall
By Ruth Abramovitz, GUSA Desk Editor, Patrick Clapsaddle, Copy Chief, and Nora Toscano, Academics Desk Editor
Oct. 31
Hundreds of Georgetown University students attended a rally at the National Mall to hear Vice President Kamala Harris deliver the closing remarks for her presidential campaign Oct. 29.
During the rally, Harris focused her speech on drawing a contrast between herself and former President Trump, saying the country needs to move past disunity and polarization.
“The United States of America is the greatest idea humanity ever devised, a nation big enough to encompass all our dreams, strong enough to withstand any fracture or fissure between us and fearless enough to imagine a future of possibilities,” Harris said at the rally. “Let us fight for this beautiful country we love.”
Noah Vinogradov (SFS ’25), who attended the rally, said Harris’s comments on striving toward the founding ideals of the country strengthened his support for her campaign.
“I already voted, but my vote was a solid anti-Trump vote and I think as of last night, my vote was a real pro-Kamala vote,” Vinogradov told The Hoya. “I’m really excited to see what she’ll do as president.”
Vinogradov said the differences between the two candidates inspired him.
“The contrast between Trump, who talks about enemies within and who stirred that mob at the Ellipse, and a message of unity, a message of, ‘I’m going to bring together people from all over the country,’ is so stark to me. I really loved it,” Vinogradov said.
Read more here.
Students Submit Ballots from Abroad
By Ruth Abramovitz, GUSA Desk Editor, and Cliff Stern, Deputy Copy Editor
3:28 p.m.
Students currently studying abroad voted using mail-in ballots.
Marre Gaffigan (CAS ’26), who is currently studying abroad in Bristol, England, said voting absentee in their home state of New York was a difficult process.
“We had to contact our respective election offices saying that we were planning on voting and then you had to wait to get an email,” Gaffigan wrote to The Hoya. “Then you had to send in a request for a ballot both by email and mail and wait upwards of five days before they would send you your ballot.”
“In the time between requesting and actually getting it, you have to constantly be emailing them being like, ‘Do you hear me? Do I appear as a voter to you?’” Gaffigan added.
Lily Marino (CAS ’26), a New Jersey voter who is studying abroad in Galway, Ireland, said she had to send in her mail-in ballot application multiple times before it was successful.
“It ended up being much harder to get my vote cast than I expected it to be, as, like others I’ve heard from in New Jersey, my initial request for a mail-in ballot was never fulfilled,” Marino wrote to The Hoya. “I called my home district and got shuffled around to a few different desks until, eventually, I saw a video on instagram of Doug Emhoff advertising iwillvote.com.”
Despite the difficulties, Marino said she was proud to fulfill her civic duty even while abroad.
“Not exercising that right in the first presidential election I am eligible for would have felt like shirking my duty–-especially in this election,” Marino said. “Either I got the honor of voting for our first female president or I expressed my opposition to a second Donald Trump presidency.”
“I might not be in America right now, but it’s still my home and it matters that I, and everyone else, got a say in the direction of our country,” she added.
Student Takes Early-Morning Train to Cast Ballot
By Ruth Abramovitz, GUSA Desk Editor, Cliff Stern, Deputy Copy Editor, and Evie Steele, Editor-in-Chief
2:35 p.m.
After New Jersey election officials rejected her mail-in ballot, one student took a 5 a.m. train home Nov. 5 to vote in-person.
Molly Kenney (CAS ’25) faced difficulties submitting their absentee ballot.
“I made sure to submit my application for my mail-in ballot to my county clerk in New Jersey pretty early since I’ve been told by family members that ‘they don’t make it easy’ for people to vote absentee,” Kenney wrote to The Hoya. “I checked the vote.nj.gov website, typed my application (since it was printed on the application that I could do so), and authorized my dad as a messenger to drop it off at the county clerk’s office, so I knew then it wouldn’t get lost in the mail or get delayed.”
Kenney’s initial ballot was rejected because she had not written it by hand with an ink pen, even though the application said she could type it.
“When my dad relayed that message to me, I filled out another and mailed it from D.C., hoping it wouldn’t get lost,” Kenney wrote. “I didn’t hear anything back from the county clerk’s office for weeks, so I was starting to lose hope.”
Yet county clerks in Kenney’s hometown rejected their ballot again, saying their signature did not match the one officials had on record. Kenney said she decided then to travel in person to New Jersey to cast her ballot, booking a train home for the morning of Election Day.
“I ended up leaving Washington, D.C., on a 5 a.m. train, getting to New Jersey at 8 a.m., voting at my local polls at 9 a.m., stopping home for a quick breakfast with my family, and then immediately heading back to the train station at 10:15 a.m. so I could attend at least one of my classes scheduled for the day,” Kenney wrote.
“Especially with this election, every vote matters, and I refused to let this set me back,” Kenney added. “I have the constitutional right to vote, after all, and I refuse to be denied this right when so many of my rights as a queer woman are on the line with this election.”
Reflecting on her experience, Kenney said they were lucky to be able to vote.
“I’ve found myself incredibly sad thinking of those who’ve had similar experiences to mine and aren’t able to travel to vote,” Kenney wrote. “A system that fails to accommodate its citizens who cannot travel to the polls risks disenfranchising large portions of the population, disproportionately affecting those working multiple jobs, lacking flexible schedules, or struggling with transportation, for example.”
“Ensuring universal access to voting is not only a matter of equity but also of upholding the democratic values that should safeguard every individual’s right to have a say in the governance of our country,” Kenney added.
Students Vote Absentee in Home States
By Evie Steele, Editor-in-Chief, and Ari Citrin, Hoya Staff Writer
1:38 p.m.
Many students have chosen to vote by mail or absentee ballot in their home states.
Emma Vonder Haar (CAS ’26) voted in her home state of Kentucky so that she could vote in competitive local races in her hometown.
“I decided to vote in my home state of Kentucky instead of D.C. because even though our Electoral College votes, folks pretty much know where they’re gonna go, there’s some down-ballot races that are pretty competitive that I have a pretty big stake in,” Vonder Haar told The Hoya.
Jack Willard (CAS ’28) said it was a simple process for him to vote absentee in Massachusetts.
“Massachusetts makes it very easy for voters to vote remotely and I really wanted to support the Harris campaign, so it was a no-brainer,” Willard told The Hoya. “It was very easy. I got a letter in the mail a few weeks ago telling me exactly what to fill out and where to sign. All I had to do was put it in an envelope and drop it in a mailbox and I was good to go.”
Lainey Lyle (SFS ’27), who lives in a small town near Athens, Ga., said she was excited to cast her first vote despite a complex process of obtaining her absentee ballot.
“I registered online, printed out and signed the paperwork in Lau, and uploaded it to Georgia’s ballot application request portal,” Lyle told The Hoya. “Unfortunately, continual error messages prevented me from finishing the application so I then got in contact with my county’s election board, sent them the paperwork and a copy of my driver’s license, and finalized my records.”
Ryan Cotzen (SFS ’28) said he voted by mail in Florida.
“It was a bit difficult figuring out exactly what steps I needed to follow to get my ballot sent to me here in D.C.,” Cotzen told The Hoya. “I had to fill out a paper form and send it back to Florida to get my ballot sent to me. That was a trickier process than I expected, but once I figured that out, it was pretty straightforward.”
Mansfield Owsley (CAS ’26) said he had difficulties receiving his absentee ballot from Texas.
“It showed up like three or four days later than it was supposed to,” Owsley told The Hoya. “It was supposed to come on the 27th and it showed up like Nov. 1, which was obviously not ideal.”
“I was voting at the same table with my girlfriend, and she’s from New York and I’m from Texas, so our ballots looked very different, which I thought was interesting,” Owsley added. “I had a lot more people that I could vote on. I was voting for railroad commissioners, or like, 13 justices for the district, whereas hers was a one piece of paper, streamlined.”
Lyle said she was determined to ensure she could cast her ballot this election.
“Besides truly believing voting is a civic responsibility, I had a lot of reasons to make sure my vote counted this election,” Lyle said. “The first is pretty obvious — Georgia is a swing state and with our electoral system I wanted to ensure I was getting my vote in. The second and more personal reason is some of the local and state-wide amendments on the ballot this year — specifically changing the taxing system.”
“It’s super easy to get caught up in the Harris/Trump fight — and it’s quite a pivotal election for our country,” Lyle added. “However, even if you’re in the reddest of red or bluest of blue states your vote can directly change local and state laws and thus your future. That’s why it was so important to me to ensure my ballot was in this year.”
Georgetown Holds Full Classes Election Day
By Ajani Stella, Hoya Staff Writer
1:37 p.m.
Georgetown University will hold classes in full on Election Day, despite graduate and law students urging the school’s administration to provide students excused absences from classes.
The Georgetown University Law Center Student Bar Association (SBA), the law school’s student government, passed legislation Oct. 9 asking the administration to offer “liberal leave” to students who need to vote in the general election Nov. 5, which the graduate student government, known as GradGov, affirmed in legislation Nov. 1. However, Georgetown graduate administrators declined to implement the legislation late Nov. 4.
Erik Smulson (CAS ’89), Georgetown’s vice president for public affairs and senior advisor to the president, said classes would occur as scheduled and offered resources for voting.
“The university will maintain all operations, including all teaching, research, and service activities on Election Day,” Smulson said in an email to all graduate students.
SBA president Max Siegal II (LAW ’25) said he and other SBA members developed the resolution to allow students better access to electoral participation.
“Many people — myself included — feel that voting is a very important right that many people in our country have died for,” Siegal told The Hoya. “We just want election participation and civil participation to be accessible to many people.”
Read the full story here.
Schedule of Events
By Evie Steele, Editor-in-Chief, Ruth Abramovitz, GUSA Desk Editor, and Ari Citrin, Hoya Staff Writer
1:30 p.m.
University clubs and the Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service (GU Politics) will host events throughout Election Day.
GU Politics will co-host a range of events including speaker talks and destressing activities such as yoga and chess while the Georgetown University College Democrats (GUCD) will host an all-day phonebank to reach voters in swing states.
Dylan Shapiro (CAS ’26), GUCD’s campaigning director, organized the phonebank.
“It’s really important that we get in contact with as many voters as possible and make sure that people know how to vote, where to vote, why we need them to vote, and that is a job that we as college students can actually do,” Shapiro told The Hoya. “A lot of times it’s really easy to view this as a system that’s happening that’s beyond our control completely and that we have no input over, and a lot of the time, that’s true; but right now with this incredibly important election going on, we can actually make a change, actually make our voices heard, and one of the ways we can do that is through volunteering like at that phonebank.”
GUCD and Georgetown University College Republicans members will also attend election night watch parties in the Healey Family Student Center as polls close across the country.
The Georgetown Pep Band played during the afternoon at a performance called “You Vote, We Play,” with students able to request songs from the band if they had voted.”
“We played for about an hour,” Allie Schlicht (SFS ’27), the band’s conductor, told The Hoya. “It was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed it. It was exciting to see all the people who voted.”
Other students, including Anusha Chowdhuri (SFS ’28), will be working for election reporting site Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ) through the nonprofit’s partnership with Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy.
Chowdhuri said students’ roles will include tracking unofficial and official election results for DDHQ’s public election results page.
“After all the polls close, they’re going to be calling up the county clerks and confirming the results and making sure all the data is good,” Chowdhuri told The Hoya. “This is for basically all the races within that county, whether for the house, Senate, President, or even some of the lower races, and this data is going to be fed into the national data that some news networks are using.”
On the Ballot in Georgetown
By Evie Steele, Editor-in-Chief
12:45 p.m.
Georgetown University students registered to vote at the university will vote for president, for Washington, D.C.’s non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, for the Ward 2 seat on the Washington, D.C. city council and for members of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 2E, the elected advisory body that represents residents of the Burleith, Georgetown and Hillandale neighborhoods, among other races.
On the ballot for non-voting delegate are Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), a visiting professor at the Georgetown University Law Center; Republican Myrtle Alexander; independent Michael A. Brown; and D.C. Statehood Green Party candidate Kymone Freeman.
Running for the D.C. Council in Ward 2 are independent Rondell Magic Jordan and incumbent Democrat Brooke Pinto (LAW ’17).
No candidates are on the ballot for members of the ANC in districts 2E08 and 2E04, which cover Georgetown’s campus, but students Knox Graham (SFS ’27) and Peter Sloniewsky (CAS ’27), among others, are running in the districts as write-ins.
Full disclosure: Peter Sloniewsky (CAS ’27) is The Hoya’s opinion editor.
“I think that ANC is a really important body for the relationship between the Georgetown neighborhood and the university,” Sloniewsky told The Hoya. “Right now, the ANC seats in 04 and 08 represent dozens of people, a very vulnerable constituency of students who largely vote in other districts around the country or are international students. I’m running for ANC because I wanted to take the opportunity to protect students who can’t necessarily vote and to act as a force that the university should consider in making decisions that affect the lives of students.”