With the 2020 elections drawing near, students on campus are preparing to vote for their preferred candidates. Various political organizations on campus are beginning to mobilize in order to increase voter turnout for their preferred party values. This week, Technician interviewed Madison Mrzygod, a third-year studying criminology and president of College Democrats at NC State.

Technician: Let’s start with the basics: What is College Democrats?

Mrzygod: College Democrats, essentially, is pretty much a group of students whose main goal is to have Democratic officials elected. We do so by helping with voter registration, voter education and I know this year I, the president, want to try to work on getting our social advocacy project. Obviously, this doesn’t have anything to do with getting officials elected, but the Democratic Party tends to be more focused on the humanities side of things. With that, I want to do something positive. 

Technician: Obviously there are different spectrums of progressiveness within the Democratic Party. Are you guys encompassing all of that spectrum or is College Democrats more specific?

Mrzygod: Yes, we want all Democrats to feel comfortable within our club. Obviously there are people who tend to be more liberal and people who tend to be more conservative-minded, but like, the main thing is just to respect one another’s opinions. You can disagree with someone, but you can’t disrespect somebody; that’s kind of what we tend to emphasize.

Technician: What are you guys planning to do for upcoming events?

Mrzygod: Right now, we’re just sort of getting settled. I’ll have a meeting with some of my members later today [Aug. 17] to try to figure things out. Obviously, we’re going to start getting some stuff out about the election and how that’s going to look with COVID-19, but hopefully, it’ll be more than just one mass email sent out because you can register to vote online now, so there’s no reason to not be registered to vote now. It’s very simple.

Technician: What about past events? What have you guys done previously within the organization?

Mrzygod: For past events, I know that we’ve had some speakers come in and talk to us, like Jenna Wadsworth. We’ve also worked with organizations such as Braver Angels, and they kind of collaborate with College Democrats and College Republicans to have discussions about certain topics. It’s helpful because, most of the time, depending on what side you’re on, you tend to be cold towards the other side, especially with how polarizing things are right now.

Technician: How are you guys planning to increase Democratic voter turnout?

Mrzygod: Well we don’t endorse any one candidate. That’s our biggest thing. Obviously, we don’t want my favorite representative to be our endorsement because that is not fair. We kind of just want our members to try to instead push the Democratic agenda, not full force because everyone has their right to take whatever position they want, but show the Democratic values which outweigh the values of the Republican party. That’s not true for everybody — some people would definitely disagree with that statement — but that’s what I hope will happen.

Technician: How are you guys dealing with recruitment for College Democrats?

Mrzygod: Personally, I’ve made a few Instagram story posts, and I’ve also done the equivalent of sending members out to find new people, and we’ve got like 25 new people who joined, which obviously is not huge, but that’s still a lot of new people. We’re also planning on going to talk to some organizations on campus, so there’s that.

Technician: How are you guys tackling inclusivity and diversity within your organization?

Mrzygod: We’re really big on trying to expand who’s in our club. Most of the time, college campuses are predominately white. Most clubs are represented by predominantly white people, unless it’s a specific club meant for people of color, which is not fair, so we’re really trying to represent a good variety of people, variety of backgrounds, variety of ethnicities, so that way, everyone is spoken for. That way, everyone is considered.

Technician: There’s a lot of inequalities when it comes to voting, so how are you guys tackling voter disenfranchisement and suppression?

Mrzygod: I think the biggest thing is that college students, especially at NC State, have had very easy access to go vote. It’s literally in Talley. Obviously not everyone can go vote there because they might be immunocompromised, but there are mail-in ballots, so our main goal is to educate voters on why their vote matters and why it’s important for them to go vote. In reality, not everyone gets those same opportunities, so we’re trying to make sure everyone gets those opportunities, if that makes sense.

Technician: Lastly, how can students get involved with College Democrats?

Mrzygod: Our GetInvolved page at NC State has my contact information listed. Once they contact me, I add them to our GroupMe and pretty much from there you just chill, talk to people, attend meetings and I’ll tell you any updates and what to do. That’s pretty much it. We also have a new Twitter account, and we’re trying to figure out how to get our Instagram page back up and running. We’re not very social media active at the moment, but once we get our Instagram account back we’ll definitely become more active.