By Molly Ashline, Staff Writer

Published in print Nov.5, 2014

On October 29, a conglomerate of members from various campus and community groups marched to the Guilford Courthouse, carrying signs and shouting chants intermittently, to cast their early votes for the November 4 elections in the second annual Walk to the Polls event organized by the UNCG Democrats.

The democrats were joined by representatives from UNCGreen, the League of Conservative Voters, the NAACP, the League of Women Voters of the Triad, the Beloved Community Center and other groups. Even a few candidates including Scott Jones and John Arrowwood made appearances to introduce themselves to prospective voters and to join the march to the courthouse. In all, over thirty individuals participated.

The march began in the late afternoon and was led by UNCG Democrats President Dylan Frick and Vice President Harmony Chavis.

When asked about how Walk to the Polls would encourage students to vote, Chavis said, “I think with our generation we’re a little more complacent. We don’t really want to vote, because we don’t think our vote matters, so when you’re around people who really believe that it does, it kind of influences you.”

Chavis went on to comment on how Walk to the Polls has steadily grown in turnout, not just at UNCG, but also at other universities like A&T that also have voting events.

Chavis said, “When you’re expecting us [students] to keep up with voter registration cards or having a certain kind of ID, you’re really taking that [the ability to vote] away from people…I think that is a way to suppress the student vote, and more exclusively, the Democratic vote.”

Chavis cast her vote on Wednesday along with the rest of the Walk to the Polls group with the exception of one individual who was unable to vote because of a photo ID stipulation.

After votes were cast, the Walk to the Polls crowd gathered at the former Boxwood Inn in Greensboro where they were joined by Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan who gave a short speech on the issues facing voters and candidates, including redistricting and new voter registration and identification laws.

Vaughan also talked about the impact the legislature has had on cities in North Carolina: “When you have a legislature that’s willing to go in and take a water system away from the city—they were going to take Asheville’s water [system] away and Charlotte’s airport away—it really makes us very concerned about some of the assets that we have here in Greensboro. We don’t believe they [the legislature] should be able to make those types of decisions for us…so it’s important when we elect people that we make sure of who we are electing.”

After her short speech, Vaughan answered questions from the audience.

UNCG Democrats handed out voting guides, candidate stickers, cards explaining changing voting policies and encouraged people to write down the reasons they were voting.