Election night on 6 November saw scores of Sussex students on campus and across Brighton pulling all-nighters to witness an historic Presidential election, which ended in an Obama victory.
Students collected together on and off campus to watch laptops and TV screens as the verdict of tens of millions of Americans on Obama’s presidency unfolded, state by state.
On Sussex campus, East Slope Bar played host to a hectic night of wall-to-wall election coverage, with a giant screen showing the BBC’s coverage of events until 6am. East Slope Bar saw a ‘one in, one out’ door policy at around midnight, with some students waiting for up to 45 minutes until they could get inside to watch the election results.
East Slope Bar confirmed on Wednesday that during the election night special, they were “at maximum capacity of 250 people”.
Students at East Slope could take part in a faux election, being able to vote for either Mitt Romney or Barack Obama. Second year History student Amy Gower said of the evening: “The crowd were completely biased towards Obama, as you’d expect! Every time Romney won a state, everyone was booing and hissing, and every time Obama won a state the place erupted. When Ohio was called and it was clear Obama had won, everyone was screaming and cheering and dancing on the tables.”
Sussex Student Beth Harris tweeted: “Such a great atmosphere last night #fourmoreyears #OBAMA2012.”
Off campus, numerous student households made great efforts to stay up for election night. A second year English Literature student, Florence Izen-Taylor, said “We’d decided to stay up for the US election by decking out our living room with mattress’ and duvets”. Despite second and third year students facing important deadlines and early morning seminars, some students reported a genuine sense that they needed to witness the election results live.
Politics student and Badger news editor Bree Allegretti said “it was a once in a lifetime opportunity. We’ll never again have the chance to see Obama and Romney battle it out for the Presidency.”
Second year English Literature student Florence continued: “we were delighted to know that good old Dimbleby was going to walk us through the election process via a run of interactive holograms. True to form, we fell asleep before the deciding polls were in, only to wake circa 6 am to see the headline: ‘Obama secures a second term’. A brief sigh of relief and back to sleep.”
From a busy East Slope Bar, Kit Bradshaw, Communications Officer, tweeted: “What a great night!”
Cat Gough,
News Editor
