Thursday, November 09, 2006

Election Day Reflections

I'm sure many of you are upset, frustrated, or disappointed with the results of Tuesday's vote to ban gay marriage in Wisconsin, and so, I wanted to say something about the amazing work students did statewide on this vote.

Statewide, many of the counties with the highest percentage of 'no' votes were counties large high student populations: Dane, La Crosse, Eau Claire, Menominee, Winnebago, and Milwaukee. In general, young people overwhelmingly opposed the ban.

I was stationed in Madison as the Campus GOTV Coordinator for the last ten days of the campaign, and I was blown away by the work students did here. In the twelve wards for which students were responsible, we turned out 16,633 votes - a number many thought we'd never reach. Of those, 85 percent voted no. To put that in perspective, only 10,011 students voted in 2002, and in 1998, when Tammy Baldwin got elected by a campus "youth quake," 13,760 students voted. We blew those numbers away.

We turned out a record-breaking number of students to vote on campus. We put all of our time, our hearts, and our passion into this fight, and for that, we should be proud. We did everything we had to do in order to win, and even though things didn't go our way, we should all hold our heads high.

And most importantly, this fight did not end on Tuesday. While we suffered a significant setback, I'm confident that if we keep working, one day our LGBT friends, family members, and neighbors will wake up to a truly fair Wisconsin. Until then, keep fighting!