UNC shuttles will take students from South Campus to their polling places

It's election season, and chances are you've been asked at least once if you're registered to vote by someone holding a clipboard.

But registering to vote isn't the only potential obstacle to participating in the upcoming primary election. Students need to get to the polling places, and the closest early voting location for students who live on campus is The Chapel of the Cross on East Franklin Street.

To help students on South Campus get to the polls, the Civic Engagement Action Coalition (CEAC) has organized an early voting shuttle with the UNC Transportation and Parking Department.

“We used to have four polling places not too long ago, but now before this year we only had one at Chapel of the Cross, which is pretty inconvenient for most students that are living on campus especially,” Ava Erfani, co-director of CEAC, said. 

During the last two days of early voting, students living on South Campus will have access to a shuttle system that will stop in front of their dorms and take them directly to their polling place at Chapel of the Cross. Students interested in taking the buses should look for P2P shuttles on Feb. 27 and 28 from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Erfani and Nicholas Batman, co-directors of the CEAC, created the coalition to address the gap in student political participation. The group aims to increase civic engagement among student populations.

“Last semester was our first one in action, and I think our whole plan is essentially to build partnership, or a network, or a coalition of several different student groups to promote civic engagement or voter involvement and student involvement in voting in ways that have never been done before,” Batman said. 

According to the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement, UNC's voting rate for the 2018 midterm elections was 47.4 percent. 

"That’s better than the national average (for all institutions), which is (about) 40 percent," he said. "But in the long run, we call ourselves a politically active university, and I don’t think we can do that if we’re not getting a lot more people out to vote.” 

Colton Browder, a first-year who lives in Hinton James, said he thinks the shuttle is a great resource for students. 

“I worked for a town council campaign last year. Transportation was a great obstacle for students," Browder said. "I think that for many, many students, it's really going to give a little more convenience to the process, because it can be a long walk."

Batman and Erfani said they hope the voting shuttle will only continue to increase student participation in politics. 

“That will really show that the University is committed to civic engagement, voting, that we can really get people out there and make that a part of our University policy," Batman said. "This is a trial run, but it’s going to probably be a big part of voting in Chapel Hill for the future."

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