The Democratic caucus for the 8th Senate District was held at BVNW today, and students and community members gathered together to volunteer and participate in the election process.

The district was allotted 15 delegates – 6 delegates for Clinton and 9 delegates for Sanders. These delegates were selected from the voters present in the PAC for the caucusing process. According to the Kansas Democratic Party, 1,488 attended the caucus at BVNW.

Caucus attendees at the BVNW location react:

“I just thought it would be a cool way to exercise the new rights that we have since we’re 18. It was cool to see all the different sides and views and passions.” -senior Abbie O’Grady, first time voter

“Sometimes the Hillary side will start a chant, sometimes the Bernie side will start a chant, and they just kind of go back and forth. It’s just like harmless bantering, but it’s kind of cool just to see people express (views about) their favorite person. One time someone started a ‘Let’s beat Trump’ chant, and that kind of like united everybody.” -senior Sarah Hansen, first time voter

“I think the thing that surprised me most was how open everyone here is to conversation and it doesn’t have to be defensive about ‘this is the candidate that I’m supporting and this is why you should be voting for them today.’ They’ve had some amazing conversations about why they should support each candidate and then also conversations about the rest of the process and also the other candidates.” -senior Riya Rana, volunteer

“I think that the Republican one was more organized, more efficient, people knew what was going on. But I think with the Democratic one, they wanted people to vote. The Republican one, they didn’t. I went to the Republican caucus knowing that I wasn’t registered to vote, and I didn’t plan on voting, I just wanted to go in and observe the process but they didn’t let me in. Whereas with the Democrats here, I literally heard one of the head guys who was in charge of me for volunteering tell me that ‘If someone wants to vote, let’s have them vote. We want them to vote.'” -senior Patrick Buzzard, volunteer 

“I brought my ukulele to make sure that everybody was excited and having a good time. I’ve been playing a song that Bernie recorded a long time ago called “This Land is Your Land.” I think it was a folk song, protest song from the 60’s.” -Gloria Lyons, volunteer and community member