With the North Carolina primaries less than a month away, many students are signing up to cast their ballots in the tight presidential race.
Mike Ashe, director of the Durham County Board of Elections, said as of 4:30 p.m. Friday, 585 people have registered to vote in precincts two and five-which include students living on East Campus and West Campus, respectively.
According to statistics from the Board of Elections, 545 of the total individuals registered were either Democratic or unaffiliated, qualifying them to vote in the May 6 showdown between Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Additionally, 442 of the 585 registered voters are between the ages of 18 and 25.
Students, alumni and community members were involved in voter registration drives on campus up until Friday's registration deadline.
Eric Teagarden said he and his wife Barb Teagarden, both Trinity '75, registered between 35 and 50 students in a two-hour period on the West Campus Plaza in early April.
"This initiative was purely just voter registration-whether people registered unaffiliated, Republican or Democratic," he said. "The point was to try to register as many people as we possibly could for the primary and later for the general election."
Freshman Madeline McCrary, an undergraduate representative to the Duke Students for Obama steering committee, said her organization conducted a voter registration campaign last week, registering more than 275 students on Thursday and Friday alone.
Though the effort was not intended to promote a particular candidate or party, McCrary said many of the students registered unaffiliated or Democratic in order to vote in the May 6 primary.
Members of Duke College Republicans, Duke Democrats and Duke Friends of Israel's Political Action Committee also participated in a voter registration drive at the Duke vs. St. John's men's basketball game Feb. 23, College Republicans Chair Samuel Tasher, a junior, wrote in an e-mail.
"Obviously, with the [Republican] primaries having been decided, we've been doing less than our Democratic counterparts have done," he said. "[The Feb. 23 effort] was less to influence the primaries at that point and more [for] general registration, which is also good for the general election."
Some students Eric Teagarden talked to wanted to register in the state because of the close nature of the state's race, he said.
According to the latest SurveyUSA poll, which was taken between April 5 and 7, Obama currently has a 10-point lead over Clinton in North Carolina.
Sophomore Casey Zweig, who is from California, said she chose to register in North Carolina so she could vote both in the primaries and the November general election.
"My vote for the presidential candidate might weigh more here than in California," she said.
Other students like sophomore Duncan Amos said they decided not to register again in North Carolina because they wanted to vote in both the local and state elections in their home states.
Early voting-which runs from April 17 to May 4-is available for students who want to cast their ballots before returning home. Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, wrote in an e-mail to students that Duke will provide busing to polling sites during the early voting period.
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