Students gathered in the Outdoor Quad Thursday, May 5 for Rock the Vote to make a bold statement about the importance of going out to vote during the upcoming primary and presidential elections.

Members from Los Medanos College Honors and Transfer Program, Alpha Gama Sigma (AGS), Club Leo and Debate Society got together to help run the event. Booths were set-up with voter registration papers for students who may not have gone out to register yet but had the chance to do so on the spot. In promotion for it, the club members were giving out hot dogs and beverages to those who were registered prior to the event.

“We lure them with the hot dogs,” joked LMC Honors and Transfer Program member Matt Sutton.

Debate Society Fundraiser Coordinator Israel Castro-Cortez said that Rock the Vote is a nice little end of the year activity to let students know that voting matters and to encourage students to get more involved in politics.

“We understand that voting for college students is important because we know not a lot of students push themselves to get involved, “ said Castro-Cortez. He added that students are the ones capable of making a change if they want to go out and do so.

“You can’t complain if you don’t vote,” said Colleen Bacchus who is also an active member of LMC’s AGS club.

Collin Brown from the Debate Society was in charge of the event this year. He also helped run it last year but felt that they did not get a lot of people to come out and be apart of it.

“I think it’s important for everyone to go out and vote,” said Brown, “the more people who go out and choose the best person for the job the likelier they are to get that person.”

He said the event went phenomenal. They had a goal to get 100 people to come out to register and towards the end of the event they had 75 people come out.

If you have further questions about voting and when to register, visit www.rockthevote.com.

Kimberly Stelly contributed to this story