Martha Pinaire waited 18 years for the opportunity to vote and 700 miles are certainly not going to get in her way.

Pinaire and four of her friends left at noon Monday from Montreat College in Montreat, N.C., where they are freshmen. The East Lansing native said she was making the trek back to Michigan so she and friend Adam Schultz of Corunna, Mich., could vote today.

Pinaire, who turned 18 in August, decided to make the trip after discovering she wouldn’t be able to vote by absentee ballot.

“I knew I had to vote no matter what so I told my parents that was what I was doing and that there was no way to change my mind,” she said via cellular phone while driving on an interstate near Dayton, Ohio.

She had registered to vote by downloading the application from the Internet, but when she wrote to the East Lansing city clerk for her absentee ballot, she was told she couldn’t have one - since she had registered by mail she had to pick up the ballot in person.

Her father, Blaine Pinaire, went into the clerk’s office to try to obtain the ballot on her behalf but was also unsuccessful. He was told Michigan law required a voter to either register in person or pick up the absentee ballot in person - his daughter hadn’t done either.

“We were disappointed and talked with Martha about it while we were visiting her in North Carolina,” he said. “She called us back and told us she was driving in to vote.”

Pinaire’s mother, Connie Pinaire, is glad her daughter feels so strongly about voting, but was nervous about her making the 11-hour drive to East Lansing for the purpose.

“We tried to discourage her by telling her now that she knows about it she could vote in the next presidential election in four years,” she said.

But her mom said Martha had waited too long for this opportunity to wait another four years. So despite her parents’ misgivings, Pinaire and her friends decided to make the drive back to Michigan. Another 11-hour return trip to Montreat awaits them immediately after she casts her vote this morning.

“Voting has been a really important thing to me ever since I knew what voting was,” she said. “Voting is my duty and Michigan has a lot of (electoral) votes, so my vote will count more there than anywhere else.”

When Schultz heard Pinaire was driving all the way back to Michigan for election day, he asked if he could tag along. He’ll be voting in New Haven Township just north of Corunna this morning.

Pinaire even got the permission from her teachers who, impressed by her decision, excused her from the two classes she will miss. One teacher is even giving her extra credit for her effort.

“I told them I was driving home in order to vote and most of them said, ‘Good for you,’” said Pinaire, who expected to drive the entire trip. “I’m seven hours into the trip right now and I don’t mind it at all. Before everyone was sleeping, but now they’re keeping me company.”

Blaine Pinaire agrees it is a long way to go to vote, but looks forward to heading to the polls with his entire family.

“I’m sure we’re all going to vote at the same time (Tuesday) in the same way,” he said. “We feel strongly about that and we want to be able to get all the possible votes for the candidates of our choice.”

Sara Luneburg can be reached at lunebur1@msu.edu.