With only a few weeks remaining until the 2024 presidential election on Nov. 5, the clock is ticking for voters to do their final research on the candidates running for office.
As Guilford College students prepare to mark their ballots, some for their first time ever, one student is going above and beyond to educate his peers on the importance of casting their vote before it’s too late.
August Hutchins is a junior at Guilford with a deep love for politics. “I’ve always known politics was important growing up,” he said. “My teacher in high school said politics is basically about who gets what, when, where and how. That’s just the key issue when it comes to your vote.”
Hutchins’ main goal is to help students identify where to start in the process. It’s something he feels that the education system has failed to inform young adults on as they move into this stage of life.
“When I turned 18 and got the right to vote, I thought ‘this is so exciting but where do I start?’” said Hutchins. “In high school, they never really taught us how to vote, how to go to polls, how to read the ballot or how to do research on candidates. That’s a big reason I brought Quake the Vote back.”
Quake the Vote is a non-partisan club at Guilford that’s aim is to educate students new to the voting process or have questions on where to begin. It started long before Hutchins arrived at Guilford but had yet to make a return to campus after COVID hit until he and classmates brought it back to life this year.
“I framed it around me not really knowing how to vote and inviting the Guilford community to join me in educating ourselves,” said Hutchins. “We’ve all sort of held each other accountable to attend different meetings and club events.”
Prior to starting Quake the Vote back up, Hutchins attended the 2024 Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago at the beginning of the fall semester.
Hutchins was invited to the DNC through his fellowship with Civic Influencers, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering young individuals to amplify their voices and engage in the democratic process. His statewide organizer reached out to him during summer and strongly encouraged him to apply since he would be a great fit. He made it past the first round of applications easily and was one of 14 or 15 to be invited to the DNC as an influencer.
Hutchins said this was the first time the DNC opened the doors to content creators and influencers like himself.
“It was intense. We had to have 10 photos and three edited videos a day. It was from Monday to Thursday, and I literally worked from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. almost every night.”
To Hutchins, the long hours were more than worth it. He was able to attend different council meetings on topics that interested him and even interviewed attendees on why it’s so important for young college students to vote.
“I believe there are 40 million eligible Gen Z voters who can register to vote in this election, and the amount of young people that I didn’t see at the DNC was really disappointing,” he said.
Hutchins is using this as his motivation to promote voter registration on campus. “I just want to spread more awareness that college students have a big impact when it comes to voting,” he said. “A lot of people that I talk to say their vote doesn’t matter and they don’t like politics.”
Hutchins said college voters are even more important in North Carolina, a swing state in this year’s election. In the 2020 presidential election, North Carolina had more than 555,000 students who were eligible to vote.
While the voting process can seem overwhelming and of little importance to some individuals, there are so many people in the community, like Hutchins, who are willing to lend a guiding hand. Regardless of one’s take on politics, it’s important to realize how the difference a single vote can make. It could change the polls like the flip of a coin.
Election day may be right around the corner, but it’s not too late to do some research and spread the word.
As Hutchins said, “It’s not just the president who’s running, it’s us.”
