Livingstone students, including organizer Chantelle Isodori on the right in blue, marched to vote early today. Photo by Wayne Hinshaw, Salisbury Post

By Mark Wineka

Salisbury Post

More than 100 Livingstone College students, many of whom said they were participating in a historic election, marched to the Rowan County Board of Elections office this morning and voted in the presidential primary.

"I'm very excited, this is a great turnout,"' said Shantel Isidore, an English major at Livingstone who served as chief organizer of the march.

Democracy North Carolina, a non-partisan group that focuses on grass-roots organization to promote voter participation and fair elections, also provided a banner and T-shirts for the marchers and what Organizing Director Adam Sotak described as "logistical support."

"It's wonderful to see people energized about voting," Sotak said of the youthful group, which included 112 student marchers from Livingstone alone.

A half dozen students from Catawba College also showed up at the elections office to vote.

"Catch them early and keep them involved," Sotak said, adding that citizens who vote as young adults usually make it a lifetime habit.

Democracy North Carolina, based in Durham, worked to have the law passed that allows voter registration and voting on the same day. The back of Democracy North Carolina T-shirts that many students wore said, "Sometimes it takes a four-letter word to be heard: Vote."

The Barack Obama campaign played a visible role in the get-out-the-vote effort, too, and many of the Livingstone students waiting in line to vote said they would be casting their ballots for Obama.

Freshman Toni Ingram said she liked that Obama doesn't look at citizens as black, white or some other color. To him, she said, they're American.

"I like that — that's what we all are, we're American," she said.

Read more in Friday's edition of the Salisbury Post.

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