By Any Means! N.C. A&T, UNCG And Bennett…
Hundreds of North Carolina school college students hit the pavement on the first day of early voting. Sources say their marching lasted practically an hour to forged their ballots after officers denied on-campus polling places at two Greensboro universities.
Source: The Washington Post / Getty
Students from North Carolina A&T State University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Bennett College joined the Oct. 15 march to Union Square Campus, turning the prolonged journey to the polls into a public demonstration over voting access.
The march got here after N.C. A&T and UNCG, which both hosted early voting places during the 2024 normal election, have been denied campus websites for the 2026 election.
Students Faced A Long Walk And Hourslong Waits
According to Greensboro.com, college students at N.C. A&T and UNCG held simultaneous rallies before marching to Union Square on the first day of early voting, with Bennett College college students and others becoming a member of along the way in which.
Marchers carried indicators studying, “It’s About Us” and “They close polling sites, we keep showing up anyway,” while chanting, “This is what democracy looks like.”
Greensboro.com reviews that the Guilford County Board of Elections earlier this 12 months declined requests from college students and local activists to add early voting websites at N.C. A&T and UNCG. The board instead accredited Union Square Campus, a downtown Greensboro health care training middle and collaboration between N.C. A&T, UNCG and Guilford Technical Community College, as a compromise.
Reporters say the trek from the campuses embody gaps in the sidewalk and poison ivy along the route.
The journey was only half of the problem.
Greensboro.com states that local Democratic organizer Kema Leonard said some college students waited three hours to vote, while others had to depart early to return to class or get to work.
“It shouldn’t have been that hard,” Leonard said. “At one point, the staffers said they had run out of registration forms. It almost proved our point that we need our own sites. They weren’t ready.”
According to the Guilford County Board of Elections’ daily tally, more than 300 votes have been forged at Union Square that day.
Student leaders also made it clear that the inconvenience wouldn’t keep them from taking part.
“We are here to make our voices heard,” Jade Dwyer, vice president of the UNC Greensboro College Democrats, told college students before the march.
At N.C. A&T, College Democrats political affairs director Xavier Jones delivered a related message.
“They are betting that you are too tired, too apathetic and have no attention span … but we are here,” Jones said.
Sen. Natalie Murdock, a Greensboro native who represents Chatham and Durham counties, joined the scholars for the roughly 45-to-50-minute stroll.
“I took the 45-to-50-minute walk with them, and there are no words,” Murdock said in Greensboro.com. “They were amazing. They were positive.”
Some taking part college students told reporters that this was a first time voting.
Previous Campus Polling Sites And Elections Board Votes
TheGrio reviews that N.C. A&T and UNCG both had early voting places on their respective campuses during the 2024 normal election before being denied websites for the 2026 election.
N.C. A&T, UNCG and Bennett College took to the streets by the tons of, with social media videos documenting the prolonged journey to and from the new polling location.
TheGrio states that the North Carolina State Board of Elections voted 3-2 along celebration traces in January to deny N.C. A&T a polling web site. Reports also say that the Republican-led board again denied the college a polling location in August.
N.C. A&T is the most important four-year traditionally Black school in the nation.
“Can we identify a single voter who is better served by having fewer opportunities to cast a ballot?” Jeff Carmon, one of two Democrats on the state elections board, requested during the latest listening to, cited by theGrio.
Political leaders also inspired college students to keep their classmates engaged.
North Carolina Supreme Court candidate Anita Earls, state Sen. Gladys Robinson and state House Minority Leader Robert Reives inspired college students to carry a pal and make sure their friends received to the polls.
“You turned out when they took your voting site away,” Reives said. “You need to do your duty today, and then you need to make sure that any student that didn’t get in their vote today, you get them there.”
Early voting in North Carolina continues through Oct. 31.
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