Campus Polling Sites Closed in North Carolina, Students Marched Miles to Vote Anyway

After polling sites were removed from campuses in North Carolina, students have taken it upon themselves to organise voting. On 15 October, the first day of early voting in the state, mostly Black students from North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University (NC A&T), Bennett College and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG) marched from their campuses to their nearest polling sites.

Previously, students were able to vote on their respective campuses. Late last year, however, the North Carolina state board of elections, with Republicans at the helm, removed polling sites from several colleges: UNCG, NC A&T, Western Carolina University (WCU) and Elon University.

Two marches have taken place so far. Each took about two hours round trip, but the students say protecting their right to vote is worth it.

Dihanna Williams, a student at NC A&T, said a lot of students wanted to march because they knew it would make a statement. Despite taking away something that should be a right, she said, students were still going to go out and vote, because voting is also their right and something their ancestors fought so hard for them to accomplish.

College Democrats of North Carolina from NC A&T, UNCG and WCU sued the state board of elections over the early voting sites in January. According to the lawsuit, without a polling place on campus, WCU students without cars — more than 60 percent of the student body — would have to walk nearly two miles, in parts along a four-lane highway with no sidewalks or guardrails, to reach the nearest polling site. In February, some WCU students marched that distance to their new early voting site.

The suit noted that NC A&T is the country's largest historically Black university (HBCU), while WCU's polling place served more Black voters than any other polling site in its county during the 2024 election. State and county officials, the lawsuit said, brushed aside urgent warnings that their decisions would disproportionately burden young and Black voters.

During the second march, on 22 October, hundreds of students were joined by the actress Marsai Martin and the recent Love Island USA winner Trinity Tatum. Martin is a co-chair of When We All Vote, the nonpartisan initiative founded by Michelle Obama to increase young and minority voter turnout; Tatum is an ambassador for the organisation.

Martin told the crowd that if people want things to change, they have to show up together. It was hard to think of another campus showing up as hard as North Carolina A&T, she said, adding that the campus had made clear it does not back down.

Shia Rozier, a senior at NC A&T and a co-founder of Protect Ours, a student-led organisation that helps run shuttles to the polls, has been going to state board of election meetings in Raleigh and protesting for polling sites since her freshman year. Rozier said on-campus polling sites are really essential at a campus, and ensuring them has been a continuous back and forth.

Alexis Cox, a junior honours political science student, said the removal of the sites only fired the students up rather than making them apathetic. Students feel even more motivated to get out and vote, Cox said, which is why they were enthusiastic about marching in the heat to their polling site, showing other students how to vote, offering each other rides and organising shuttle services to the polls.

During NC A&T's homecoming last week, campus leaders held Votecoming: Party at the Polls, a voter mobilisation effort as part of When We All Vote's work. The organisation's Party at the Polls has been associated with a two to four-percentage point increase in voter turnout. Rozier said student organisers are also hosting voting-centric cookouts and events.