FSU students march to community polling site to push importance of voting

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (WTVD) -- Students at Fayetteville State University (FSU) are coming together in droves to head to the polls.

Throughout the day, students marched to FSU's nearest polling site to make their voices heard. It's a major event voting advocates hope will motivate marginalized communities surrounding FSU's campus.

For many FSU students like Brooklyn Edwards, this was their first time voting.

"I just feel really like wonderful, happy to have my opinion be voiced out into the world," Edwards said. Edwards and her classmates tell ABC11 there is a range of issues they're concerned about this election:

"My main issues are, of course, reproductive health and reproductive rights. I am a college student, a college girl. So when it comes to, you know, things like birth control, abortions, I feel that's the woman's choice," Edwards said. "And she's able to decide what she wants to do with her body. I feel like taking that away only cause it's harm to everyone involved, men and women."

"As a student, education is a really big thing and we all want education to be affordable," said Jalon Mcallister-Smith, a senior at Fayetteville State University. "I want every student after me to be able to have access to higher education no matter their background."

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"The issue of inflation, it is kind of getting a little hard as a college student," Langston Robinson also a senior at Fayetteville State University.

"Even though I'm not struggling, I know there's other college students, they are kind of struggling."

Neighborhoods around Fayetteville State University's campus are being prioritized by voting canvassers at Common Cause North Carolina. Organizers there say these areas have more marginalized, low-income populations that are disproportionately impacted by voter apathy, and resultingly more at risk of lower turnout. However, the Sandhills organizer for Common Cause says there is a silver lining, and that the presence of FSU students showing up to the neighborhood polling site in large numbers could motivate their university's neighbors.

"I know a lot of young people, especially in online circles. I'm seeing they're encouraging other young people to engage with their parents, with their with their grandparents about the importance of voting and, you know, why they might vote for one candidate over the other. So I hope that both generations are maybe rubbing off on each other."

Rodriguez encourages people to visit NCVoterGuide.org, a free, non-partisan website to learn more about this year's candidates if they're still deciding who to vote for. Anyone looking to learn more about canvassing and volunteer opportunities with Common Cause NC can visit the organization's website.