Editor’s Note: This post is one of two featuring the Penn State College Democrats and College Republicans. You can read our conversation with the President of the Penn State College Republicans, Ryan Klein, here.

It’s that time of year, folks!

With election season ramping up, it’s important to know what the people in our community and here at Penn State are doing in preparation before everyone heads to the polls. We decided to sit down with the President of the College Democrats, Baybars Charkas, a fourth-year student majoring in political science, French, and Russian, to find out a little more about his organization.

Onward State: For the folks who don’t know, what are the Penn State College Democrats?

Baybars Charkas: The Penn State College Democrats is the official Democratic Club on campus. We represent Democrats at Penn State and Democratic students at State College. We’re a club of about 40 people. Currently, as it stands, 40 people actively come to meetings and participate, but there are over 300 people in our chat. So we have a pretty broad audience. Our job is to make sure Democrats get elected at the state level, at the local level, and at the federal level, helping in whichever way that we can to make sure that that happens, but also providing a home and a harbor for democratic students who are interested in democratic politics.

OS: How do the College Democrats get involved and interact with students on campus?

BC: For instance, we do tabling daily in the HUB going till the election, and we’ll continue to do tabling after the election period as well. We host events. We work a lot with the local Democratic Party. So the Centre County Democratic committee is on Allen Street. It’s about a 10-minute walk from the HUB, so we work with them a lot. We make sure that we’re in constant conversation, talking about ways that we can collaborate. We go to events.

[Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] was here last Friday. The five governors from Pennsylvania, Michigan, Maine, New Mexico, and Wisconsin were here on Sunday, so we participated in all of those events. We helped put them together. We do canvases. So we go out in the community, we knock on doors, we make sure that people are registered to vote and are voting for Kamala Harris, telling voters what the policies of Kamala Harris are, and why we think that they should vote for them. We do other fun stuff, like socials, and regular club events, just to make sure we’re building a community within the club. It’s not all work, it’s not all heavy lifting. It’s also some fun stuff that we do because we’re normal students. We’re students first, so that’s very important as well.

OS: What’s the most important role, generally and right now, of the College Democrats?

BC: The most important role that we have right now is supporting, in whichever way we can, Democrats on campus, supporting Democrats at the state, local, and federal levels. I think that’s absolutely crucial. It’s making sure all of our members and all like-minded people are registered to vote. It’s making sure they have a plan to vote, that they’re either voting early with their mail-in ballot or they’re going to vote on November 5, that they know where the polling location is, that they know the hours, that they have a time set consecrated to vote. That’s very important for us. Making sure people are aware of what’s happening, that they have a plan to vote, that they’re going to vote, and that they’re implicated in their democracy.

OS: Is the group doing any work to increase voter turnout?

BC: So I previously mentioned the tabling that we do in the HUB. Unfortunately, the deadline to register to register to vote has already passed. So if you haven’t registered to vote here in Pennsylvania, I’m sorry. I’m afraid that it’s too late. But we will continue voting. We will be doing get-out-the-vote, tabling almost every single day.

On Election Day, we’ll be tabling in four different locations, on campus, two at the HUB, and two elsewhere, and make sure that people know where the polls are, that they have a plan to vote, that they take the time out of their day to vote because it’s very important. We’re not really asking much for you from you. I mean, sometimes the lines can be long, but we’re asking you to just stay in a line, just this one day, to tick a box. Make sure you’re involved in your democracy. Make sure you’re voting, and make sure you understand the issues. Other than that, as I said, we have constant collaboration with the Centre County Democratic Committee.

OS: What are some of the goals you have as an organization here at Penn State?

BC: Our goal is to increase Democratic outreach and Democratic involvement as much as possible. Our goal is to build a kind, comforting, welcoming community for democratic members. Our goal is to make sure people have a voice in progressive politics. Obviously, the majority of young people are more progressive than conservative, but even at Penn State, you know, we’re not a school known for progressive activism. So it can be hard if you’re in that space to find a milieu where you have people who think the way you think. And our goal is to make sure the Democrats get the best showing possible.

OS: How do the College Democrats interact with candidates during election season?

BC: I think we have to first establish that Penn State is the largest campus in the most important swing state in the United States. So obviously we are at the center of a storm of attention, which is very good, but it can be tricky to navigate sometimes. But in terms of campaigns we specifically, students for Harris, worked hand in hand with the Kamala for PA team and the AOC team to bring AOC here. We were the ones that volunteered at the event, and we got to speak. I’ve been very thankful they’ve been able to implicate us and they’ve been able to involve us in a very direct way. And I hope going forward, as we get more people here on campus, we will continue to be involved in a very direct way, [College Democrats] and Students for Harris.

OS: What case do you make for Kamala Harris in this campaign when people ask?

BC: I think Kamala Harris is the only candidate right now who understands an economy that works best is an economy that works for working people. Kamala Harris is the only candidate in the race who understands climate change is a serious problem. Kamala Harris is the only person in this race that understands a woman’s right to choose is sacrosanct, and it doesn’t have to be the government interfering in a woman’s life or reaching into her bedroom or into her clinic with her doctor. Kamala Harris is the only candidate who understands we need to lead by building alliances, not by breaking alliances with our allies. Kamala Harris is the only candidate who understands the principles of democracy are absolutely sacred and if you win an election, you respect the results of the election. I think that Kamala Harris is a person who understands the fears of young people. She understands how incredibly expensive it is to go to college. Donald Trump was born wealthy. He was born with a golden spoon. I think Kamala Harris is someone who will advocate, and who has been advocating for over two decades for the average Joe and Jill in this country, and I think when she assumes the highest office in the land she will continue to do that. And I look forward to seeing that.

OS: How can students at Penn State get involved with the College Democrats?

BC: We have meetings every single Monday in Wartik 108 from 8 to 9 p.m. We usually post what we’re doing on Instagram, so if people are interested, people can see what we’re doing there. But the main focus is basically our events on Mondays. That’s where we all come together and we discuss. And the way that those meetings work is for the first portion, we go through updates. So here’s what we’ve been doing. Here’s what’s to come. Sometimes we have speakers. And then we have a discussion. So we discuss things that are topical. In this past meeting, we discussed infrastructure. The meeting before we discussed climate change. In some meetings, we discuss foreign policy and so on and so forth. So it’s a way, not only for you to get information about what Democrats in the local area are doing, but also to participate and to share your opinion about the issues you care most about.

OS: What’s your relationship like with College Republicans through all this?

BC: I think we have a very good relationship, and I’m very, very happy with that. Ryan Klein, the President of the College Republicans, and I were elected around the same time. We both came into office with a vision that we wanted to collaborate with one another. In the past, relationships have been very chilly. And we decided, “You know what, even if we can’t agree on most issues or even all issues, we can at least be respectful to one another,” and on a purely professional basis, we can try to work with one another to do things that benefit both our clubs. Over time, Ryan and I discovered we have a lot in common. So we struck up a very personal friendship beyond the purely professional one. I’ve been to his birthday party. We went out to the bars together. We had an interview between us that aired on CBS. We’ve done stories together, and people have noticed from across the campus and on the national scale as well, that we have this relationship, that it’s, unfortunately, out of the ordinary right now in American politics.

OS: As per Onward State tradition, if you could be any dinosaur, which would you be and why?

BC: Definitely some kind of Aauropoda. So a Brachiosaurus would probably be the best. My favorite non-extinct animal I think, is an Elephant and Brachiosaurus are sort of the elephants of the Dinosaur world. I just find it so amazing that they’re able to reach such giant proportions. It’s sort of a testament to what nature and Mother Nature are capable of doing, and evolution.