Radboud Honours Academy students are in America this week. They do research on voter inequality and are very close to the election action.

There they are, in the bottom right of the photo. Eleven Honours Academy students are present at the speech given by Mike Pence’s wife. Just like her husband, who is Donald Trump’s running mate, she tries her hardest to win last-minute votes for the Republicans. Mike Pence posted the photo on Twitter.

The students from Nijmegen are very close to everything that happens during the American elections. Last week, they went to the States. Their mission: do research on voter inequality. The students take part in a think tank on that theme.

‘Yesterday, we went door to door for the Democrats’, says Honours Academy’s Charlotte Brand, calling from Washington. ‘The students rang people’s doorbell to ask whether they are going to vote and see if they need help with that.’

‘This trip is full of extremes’

The Nijmegen students are not supposed to give voting advice. ‘This trip is full of extremes’, says Brand. ‘We also meet Republicans.’

Demonstration
The students also spoke to American citizens who are not allowed to vote because they committed a felony, and they attended a demonstration by the Black is Back Coalition, an African American movement that fights for more equality.

‘America is so divided, and that is sometimes hard to watch for us Dutch’, writes Sabrina Kok, one of the students. ‘We were shocked by the anger that lives here. The divide between white and black also still exists.’

Today, the group takes a bus from Washington to New York.

Later this week, the students write about their experiences on Voxweb.