ETSU’s Alpha Delta Pi sorority held “Rock the Vote,” an MTV-affiliated event that encourages students to get involved in local and national elections.
This event, which drew in enough students to fill the Martha Street Culp Auditorium on Monday night, has been on ADPi’s agenda for about two years, said the sorority’s president Brittany Holbert.
“This summer, we applied to MTV’s ‘Rock the Vote’ and got all the campaign materials,” Holbert said. “We had an amazing turn-out – this is exactly what we wanted.”
Holbert and the other 88 members of her sorority, along with some help from the College Democrats and College Republicans, sponsored this event.
“Every year you have politicians who say, ‘this is the most important election in our country’s history,’ but guess what – this is the most important election in our country’s history,” said Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey. “I encourage you to be involved not only in voting, but in campaigns.”
Each of the other five speakers echoed this sentiment that students should vote in this election. “This is a real opportunity for us, because this is not a norm for us to be talking to your age-group in this large a number,” said state Rep. Nathan Vaughn.
Vaughn urged young people to leave this country in better shape for the next generation. “Young people, this is your future,” he said. “Don’t just got out and vote – get involved, learn the issues.”
Learning the issues has become an easier task these days according to James Reeves, an Independent running for the 1st Congressional District seat. “I’ve seen a change in the country in the last 10 years – if you want the information, you can get the information.”
Rob Russell, the director of ETSU’s Writing and Communications Center who recently earned the Democratic nomination for the 1st District seat of the House of Representatives, said he decided to run for Congress after being inspired by Al Gore’s film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” In this film, Gore urges people to write a letter to their congressional representative if they are not happy with the way things are being done, and if that doesn’t work, they should run for Congress.
“The only reason I’m sitting here is because I had enough people sign a petition because I was pissed off,” said Russell. “There can never be change if we don’t believe change is possible.”
After each politician had spoken, Connie Sinks, Washington County administrator of elections, gave students important information regarding this year’s election. The early voting period in Tennessee is from Oct. 15-30, and the regular deadline for voter’s registration is Oct. 6. Polls open for voting on Nov. 4.
Other speakers present at “Rock the Vote” were Phil Roe, the Republican candidate for the 1st District House seat, and Bill Jones.

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