(Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect the fact that Shawn Rush is not a candidate in this year’s election. He is not up for reelection until the next municipal election.)

EAST SPENCER — Municipal candidates from East Spencer and Salisbury showed up Thursday at East Spencer’s Town Hall in a bid to galvanize voters for both this year and 2024’s elections.

The event was part of Black Voters Matter’s statewide tour where they partner with towns and other entities in hopes of getting as many people as possible to vote, according to Aniyah Vines, a regional organizer for the organization. The tour brought them to Livingstone College’s campus on Thursday morning, where Vines said they had shuttles to the early voting location for the students.

After leaving Livingstone, Vines and the Black Voters Matter van moved to the parking lot of East Spencer Town Hall where they and the candidates were stationed in an effort to educate voters and convince them to turn out this year.

Candidates who attended the event included Deloris High and Barbara Mallett out of East Spencer and Shanikka Gadson-Harris and Anthony Smith from Salisbury. East Spencer Mayor Pro Tem Shawn Rush, who is not up for reelection until 2025, also attended the event.

Rush said that because of the town’s recent growth in population and the new housing being built, many East Spencer voters do not know the candidates as well as life-long residents do. He and a few of the other candidates are trying to remedy that by canvassing.

“We pulled up a phone list and we started calling all of them. We’ve also been going door to door and talking to people,” said Rush.

High said that although she was not worried about overall voter turnout, she does worry about getting younger generations to vote. She said that she was worried that young people these days have too much going on in their lives that would make them less likely to vote in elections such as this year’s without state or national candidates.

Several of the candidates also took the opportunity to be more visible to voters and have conversations about the issues.

“I think I’ve been at almost everything that candidates can go. This is my first time running, so I really just want people to know who I am, know where I stand,” said Gadson-Harris.

Both Rush and High said that the population growth and the town’s bid to attract more businesses have been issues that residents in East Spencer have asked about. Mallett said that while there were not many “hot-ticket” issues to talk to voters about, she was trying to speak with voters and get their opinions on the other issues that the town currently faces

Rush and Mallett said that the turnout was not great on Thursday. However, all of the candidates said that they would continue to reach out to potential voters in their towns to have as many people’s votes counted on Election Day as possible.

As of Thursday, less than 1,000 voters, or 2.38 percent of the eligible voters, had voted during the early voting period, according to totals from the county’s elections office. In the last municipal election, 2021, the office reported that they had 2,608 voters during early voting and 2019 had 2,314 early voters. Saturday is the final day for early voting before Election Day on Tuesday.