Student groups organize rides while a lawsuit contests polling access
On 15 October, the first day of early voting in North Carolina, mostly Black students from North Carolina A&T, Bennett College and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro marched from their college campuses to their nearest polling sites in Greensboro. The two marches organized so far took about two hours round trip, and the students said the trip was worth it because it protected their right to vote.
Students previously could vote on their respective campuses. The Guardian reported that late last year, with Republicans in control in North Carolina, the state board of elections removed polling sites at UNCG, NC A&T, Western Carolina University and Elon University. The removals prompted students to organize voting efforts and transportation. College Democrats of North Carolina, with members from NC A&T, UNCG and WCU, sued the state board in January over the early voting sites.
The lawsuit said more than 60% of WCU’s student body did not have cars and would have to walk nearly two miles to the nearest polling site, in parts along a four-lane highway with no sidewalks or guardrails. Some WCU students marched that distance in February to reach the new early voting site.
The suit noted that NC A&T is the country’s largest HBCU and that WCU’s polling place served more Black voters than any other polling site in its county during the 2024 election. It also said, “State and county officials brushed aside urgent warnings that their decisions would disproportionately burden young and Black voters and denigrated students who advocated for their rights.”
The Guardian characterized the marches as part of broader efforts to combat voter suppression, organized by students and national organizations such as the Michelle Obama-founded When We All Vote. At the second march on 22 October, hundreds of students were joined by actor Marsai Martin, a co-chair of When We All Vote, and recent Love Island USA winner Trinity Tatum, an ambassador for the group. When We All Vote is a non-partisan initiative to increase young and minority voter turnout.
“I’ve realized that if we want things to change, we’ve got to show up together. It’s hard to think of another campus showing up as hard as North Carolina A&T,” Martin said to the crowd. “We are here to celebrate something that this campus has made very clear. Y’all do not back down.”
Dihanna Williams, an NC A&T student, said many students wanted the march to make a statement. “I think that a lot of students wanted to come and march because they knew that it would make a statement,” Williams said. “It would show them that, despite y’all taking away something that should be a right to us, we’re still going to go out and vote because that’s also a right for us and that’s something that our ancestors fought so hard for us to accomplish. I don’t think that anything would have gotten in the way of A&T students voting.”
The Guardian said some students might have responded to the removal of polling sites with apathy or taken it as an excuse not to vote. Alexis Cox, a junior honors political science student, said the decision instead fired the students up. “Students feel even more motivated to get out and vote,” Cox said. “That’s why we were so enthusiastic about marching in the heat to our polling site, showing other students how to vote and offering rides to each other and we’ve also organized different shuttle services to the polls.”
Shia Rozier, a senior at NC A&T and co-founder of Protect Ours, a student-led organization that helps run shuttles to the polls, has worked with other students to mobilize around voting. Since her freshman year, Rozier has attended state board of elections meetings in Raleigh and protested for polling sites. “It has been a continuous back and forth trying to make sure we have on-campus polling sites, which is really essential at a campus,” Rozier said.
During NC A&T’s homecoming last week, campus leaders held Votecoming: Party at the Polls, a voter mobilization effort as part of When We All Vote’s efforts. The Guardian reported that When We All Vote’s Party at the Polls has been associated with a two- to four-percentage-point increase in voter turnout. Rozier said student organizers also hosted voting-centric cookouts and events.
Rozier said the organizing has renewed a culture of voting. “It really brings back a culture where voting is engaging after a time where you’re fighting for your rights,” she said. “It’s unpleasant to be told by your representatives that your voice doesn’t matter. We’re pivoting and just deciding, ‘If it didn’t matter as much, you guys wouldn’t be working to take it away.’”