The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.

Lucia Iandolo: Students and Ithaca community members have gathered in downtown Ithaca October 13th for the I Am Jane Doe rally to support students’ demands in light of the reopened criminal investigation into the alleged 2024 gang rape of a former Cornell University student by members of the school’s Chi Phi fraternity. The lawsuit was filed on September 16th, two years after the plaintiff identifying as Jane Doe was allegedly sexually assaulted and gang raped by seven Chi Phi fraternity brothers. Since the Cornell Daily Sun, Cornell University student-run newspaper broke the story on September 18th, it has received widespread media attention and sparked nationwide anger. This has led to protests across the United States, including on Cornell University’s campus, Ithaca College’s campus, and in the greater Ithaca community. Can we

Speaker: Demonstrate it over here?

Lucia Iandolo: Many members of the Ithaca community, including businesses and organizations, have spoken out and condemned the Cornell administration’s complicity. Today, the I Am Jane Doe rally is being held to demand accountability from the Cornell administration and advocate for systemic change in relation to sexual assault.

Speaker: From Cornell to LSU. From Cornell to LSU. Survivors, we stand with you. Survivors, we stand with you.

Samara Ferris: We are here to provide support to the Cornell University to also inspire people in other universities and other communities around the US to stand up and fight in their own communities. So we want to echo the student demands because they live it every day. They know.

Speaker: Emphasize our full support and endorsement of all student demands. Cornell students have come up with an exhaustive, extensive list of demands because they know what their school needs.

Jessie Romero Silver: So I think there is a responsibility on the local level to do something because of our proximity to Cornell, but there’s also a responsibility to yourself as well. As a human and as a feminist, I would say if you care about the women around you, you must care about this. And you have to care about this once the media cycle is done, once eyes are not on Cornell anymore. Because my greatest fear is that we are so angry about this, that this is happening on a national level and it’s finally being shown and Cornell is just going to run out the clock until people don’t care anymore and then they don’t have to do anything. So I really want people to step up in this moment, not just because it’s a national story, but because you’re a person, you should care. You have to care.

Speaker: We are here because we demand answers and I refuse to wake up 10 years from now and realize nothing has changed.

Samara Ferris: Everyone’s organizer. I’m not a professional organizer. I’m a business owner. I’m a chef. I’m an organizer. All these amazing people today, they’re organizers. There are artists, there are writers, there are other business owners. Everyone’s an organizer. Everyone can organize something. It can be a teaching. It could be a book club. It can be a dinner after everyone goes to vote. So everybody is an organizer and I think that’s what’s important is that everyone needs to stand up and become an active part of changing culture here and everywhere.

Speaker: We need institutions to do their job when nobody is watching. I’m here as a student, as a man, and as someone with a platform.

Alex Prout: If we’re going to address this issue, men need to care about this and men need to speak up and take action. In the advocacy world, it’s primarily women speaking up and we’re asking people who’ve been traumatized, who’ve been impacted by this to carry the burden of this work, which is inherently unfair. So we need men to stand up and speak up and care.

Speaker: Whose voices we listen to and whether we speak out regardless of what it costs.

Alex Prout: When we talk about sexual violence, a lot of people use the term gender-based violence and also a lot of people think that this is a woman’s issue. It is not a women’s issue. This is a men’s issue.

Speaker: Your administration is not what makes Cornell a prestigious institution. Your courageous, your intelligence, your willingness to talk about an issue that so many people don’t want you to say.

Jessie Romero Silver: People have been talking about rape culture since I was a freshman. And as a freshman coming in to that, it was very easy to just hear this and think this is just another typical part of college and that there’s nothing we can do about it and it’s out of our hands. But there is something that we can do about it. We’ve seen, especially at Cornell’s campus, that students who have spoken out against injustices have lost their time at those colleges, at those institutions, haven’t been able to finish their degree. And it is a fear, but we have to keep going. We have to keep moving forward.

Taya Graham: Pennsylvania’s 7th District is a diverse community stretching across the Lehigh Valley, but just before the midterm election, there is a common theme from residents that we spoke to.

Kathy: We are not liking what we see in our country.

Taya Graham: Anger and the desire for change.

Kathy: We’re not liking the effects of the things that are taking place in Washington, and therefore people are out trying to make a change.

Taya Graham: And how voters feel here could be critical to who controls the House. It is one of more than a dozen battleground districts, which is why we spent several days speaking to the people who will determine the outcome. Many said high prices, lack of affordable housing, and a disconnect between Washington and the concerns of working people were motivating their vote.

Valerie: But from what I see, a lot of people, including people that were always Trumpers or used to be always Trumpers, are actually changing their mind. They’re really upset. When they go to the grocery store, my grocery bills in the last year have tripled.

Taya Graham: But we also learned there are other more specific issues that could sway the election. Data centers have become a national issue, but the impact is truly local. Last week, the Bethlehem City Council met to approve more restrictive zoning regulations for data centers. The law would create wider setbacks from residential neighborhoods and limit noise levels. For some, data centers were the deciding factor on how they would vote.

Darcy: I actually see this as it being forced on us, it being forced on us quickly, it being forced on us without the proper studies and concern about the environment that honestly, I think it’s across the board, people don’t want them. And this is an issue that I think Republicans, Independents, and I think this is our stamp act.

Taya Graham: A unifying issue in an otherwise fractured electorate.

Mary Collier: Doors and on the phones across our turfs in Pennsylvania right now, affordability, housing and data centers are the top issues. I think there’s a lot of reasons to hate data centers, but the fact that 40% of Pennsylvanians can’t afford their bills right now, knowing that these things are going to raise their utility bills is a huge reason that it’s on people’s minds and they’re thinking about it going into this election.

Taya Graham: The race between Democrat Bob Brooks and Republican Ryan McKenzie is tight. The Cook’s political report gives Brooks a five point lead, but 16% of voters remain undecided. Neither attended the hearing. Brooks did make an appearance when the Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial bookmobile visited Bethlehem. It’s a moving repository of Epstein investigatory files and emails that has traveled across the country. We asked Brooks if he thought that the Epstein scandal would impact voters.

Bob Brooks: I think they’re a huge factor. People of all walks and want to see these things released. I think it’s a huge issue. I know within my union, I’ve watched my union members feel like they’ve been lied to, and this is one of the big topics that they voted that way in the beginning and now they’re feeling lied to. So I think you’re going to see it be a really big factor.

Taya Graham: At another stop, residents agreed.

Krista: I wanted to see the 3.5 million books. I wanted to see what it was all about and that I can’t believe our leaders in our country are saying this is a hoax.

Taya Graham: However, looming over the district were other more foreboding concerns that democracy itself was on the ballot and that their vote would not be counted.

Cathy: I am going to vote by mail, but I’m going to put my ballot in a drop box as opposed to the mail because I don’t trust that process, which is ridiculous. The United States Postal Service, we feel like we can’t even trust that anymore.

Thomas: I think that there’s a strong possibility that they would block as many votes as possible.

Taya Graham: We will continue to be on the ground in this critical district as the midterms unfold. This is Taya Graham and Steven Janis reporting for you.