By Julianna Parker
The Transcript

NORMAN, Okla.

As the results of Pennsylvania and Ohio flashed up on the big screen, the room erupted in cheers and whoops.
This wasn’t the Democratic party headquarters on election night, it was the OU Votes watch party at the Oklahoma Memorial Union at the University of Oklahoma. About 500 students were expected to attend the watch party at some point. About 150 were there at about 8 p.m.
Although the event was not partisan, it was clear the Democratic party had won the college crowd Tuesday in Norman.
As CNN flashed on the screen that John McCain had won Georgia, a few students cheered but more booed softly.
“I would say that the youth vote has been substantially helpful for Barack Obama,” said Klint Neal, public affairs and administration junior and organizer of OU Votes. Neal turned in a research paper this week predicting that Obama would win based on the support of young voters.
He said he’s seen first-hand his peers becoming engaged during this election.
“People who are apathetic about the political process are going out to vote,” Neal said.
Becky Miller, 20, agreed that young people were excited about this election. She said both presidential campaigns tried to engage young voters through Facebook and YouTube.
“I think you could really see it more in Obama’s campaign,” Miller said. She predicted young people would continue to engage in future elections if Obama won, because they would feel that they really did make a difference.
Paleontology student Dustin Gibbs campaigned for Barack Obama, Andrew Rice and Jim Roth this election by posting fliers on doors and holding up signs.
“I realized that my vote alone isn’t enough, but if I help to encourage other people to vote, in that way I can basically have a greater impact on the election,” he said. “It’s really helped give me something to do and hope for.”
At the OU Votes watch party, he watched the three big screens set up in the ballroom as well as monitoring the election results on his laptop.
When someone took up the microphone and announced that CNN.com had just declared Jim Inhofe the winner in the Senate race, Gibbs didn’t give up hope, saying there was still a chance Rice could win.
This was the first campaign in which the 19-year-old could vote or campaign. He took advantage of the opportunity, along with many of his peers.
Caleb Gayle, 18, voted Tuesday. Being the son of Jamaican immigrants, he was the first in his family to vote.
“They were definitely encouraging me forcefully to go out and vote,” he said of his family.
A lot of young people became engaged with this election and made a difference in this election, Gayle said.
“If any candidate is able to get a lot of young people to the polls, they’ll have a lot of sway,” he said.
The Obama campaign did a good job of getting young people to the polls, said Chris Applegate, a 21-year-old geography student wearing an Obama T-shirt and a Rice sticker. Obama supports issues that are important to young people, Applegate said, like helping the Darfur region of Sudan and coming up with solutions to slow climate change.
“I think we’ll see by the end of the night that the youth have made an impact,” he said. And Applegate said political candidates need to learn a lesson from this election.
“They need to listen to us more,” he said. “… If they don’t listen, they won’t be in office anymore.”

Julianna Parker can be reached at jparker@normantranscript.com