C-SPAN Campaign Bus pulls into Elon, loaded with election resources

By Owen Covington, staff

October 31, 2016

The bus is traveling through battleground states with stops at colleges, universities and high schools leading up to the Nov. 8 election. 

The C-SPAN Campaign Bus made a stop at Elon on Monday as it makes its way through the battleground states of North Carolina, Virginia and Pennsylvania before Election Day on Nov. 8. 

Students tap into the political and government resources available on the C-SPAN Campaign Bus. 
The bus, equipped with a variety of touchscreen monitors, laptops and video resources is seeking to offer voters with a broad range of resources as they make up their minds before heading to the polls, said Janae Green, a marketing representative with the nonprofit cable network that focuses on government coverage. The goal is to provide information in a nonpartisan way so that citizens can get a “fly on the wall viewpoint of government,” Green said. 

​​Through interactive exhibits, Elon students, faculty and staff on Monday were able to learn about the public affairs network’s in-depth coverage of Congress, the White House, federal courts and its signature political program, “Road to the White House.” The goal is to educate, not advocate for a candidate or party, Green said. 

At the rear of the bus, Green used a large touchscreen monitor to search through 220,000 hours of programming that C-SPAN has collected since 1987, showcasing the information the network can provide to students and voters alike. 

Jenae Green with C-SPAN explains the resources on the cable network’s Campaign Bus during its stop at Elon.
​​The bus tour is being produced in conjunction with cable networks, which support C-SPAN’s nonprofit mission of providing comprehensive government and political programming. Charter Communications, which recently purchased Time Warner Cable, is C-SPAN’s partner for the tour through North Carolina, which included a stop at N.C. A&T State University before the stop in Elon en route to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Tuesday. 

Along with providing information, the C-SPAN bus was also collecting it, with a series of 30-second on-camera interviews with visitors who could choose to talk about who they are voting for and why, what question they would have asked during the presidential debates or an issue they view as important during this election. Those videos can be found on Twitter with the hashtag #cspanvoices and will be shared throughout C-SPAN’s social media platforms. 

 

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