Underclassmen take on leadership roles on Election Night

By Claire DeRoin–
Lying on the newsroom floor Wednesday morning in sheer exhaustion, Katie Copple and Jianna Hoss, both sophomores in the field of mass communication, bantered back and forth and reflected on their Election Night experience. Tuesday night found them newsroom reporters as they directed fellow mass communication as well as political science students. A team of vote-counters would keep track of key races, then report to Copple and Hoss, who were the on-air reporters that delivered the messages in front of the cameras.

“After yelling, ‘Tally sheets! Tally sheets! Tally sheets!’ I’m surprised I didn’t lose my voice,” Hoss laughed. “We kept track of the percentage of votes for all of the toss-up elections: presidential, senate, house,” Hoss said.

“We had to interview vote counters that didn’t want to be interviewed,” Copple said.

“We had to remember to look at the camera,” Hoss added.

“And say names we couldn’t pronounce,” Copple said. “We were rushed. It was hard. We were trying to get all of the information. Our final broadcast was ten minutes because there was so much! Local races, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota, and national stuff.”

Hoss and Copple knew what their roles would be before Election Night rolled around, but despite their advance planning, it was a learn-on-the-fly situation.

“The poli-sci students kept coming in shifts,” Hoss said in dismay. “The new ones would come in and not know what to do. We had to keep training them.  But some peoples’ replacements never came, so they had to stay all night.”

“The first time around, it was chaotic,” Hoss continued. “We had to figure out how the tally sheets worked, and teach the poli-sci people how to do things. It was easier early on, but as more states came in, it got tough. The second we were off camera, we had to get going on the tally sheets again,” she explained.

“[We had] Lots and lots of wasted paper,” Copple said. And of the newsroom: “And it smelled like a men’s locker room.”

Overall, their positions provided good leadership experience, Hoss said.

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