As the 2016 presidential election approaches, many political groups on campus are preparing for voting day with a presidential debate viewing party in the University center, that was sponsored by The College Democrats, The Zeta Iota Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha, as well as Whitewater’s Black Student Union (BSU).

The Debate party was mostly a team effort between the three groups, although The College Democrats initially reached out and began the event planning.

The College Democrats helped host the event to get information out about the candidates, as well as voting.

“We just want to make sure the people are getting the information about the presidential race, obviously we’re a partisan organization,” chair of the College Democrats, Anna Young said. “But for everybody else, I think they just want people to know what’s happening.”

BSU felt that it was important that the group was at the viewing party because their board is not very politically inclined, so by viewing the debate, it can give their group information about the current political situation.

“We can’t teach it  to our members, so if we can at least give them a resource, so they can know more, so they can make the right vote,” Danny Overstreet Jr., BSU president said.

About 75 students showed up for the event, who all came to the event expecting to get different things out of the debate. Some students showed to see if the candidates are qualified.

“[I] Just wanna see if they really know their stuff, you know who to go for,” freshman Quay Wilson said.

Students who attended the event came to see many different societal issues discussed by the candidates.

“I would like to see the Black Lives Matter issue addressed, [also] Planned Parenthood and minimum wage,” Aydanna Smith said.

As the debate began and the candidates gave their opening statements, many students had differing opinions of how the candidates handles themselves and the issues they spoke about.

“I think both of them have just been saying stuff, but not telling us how they plan to do about it,” Daniel Brever said. “It’s meaningless.”