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With early voting for the March 3rd midterm primary elections beginning Feb. 12th and ending Feb. 28th, students at three universities, along with the College Democrats of North Carolina, are suing the state Board of Elections (SBE) in federal court because the Republican-led body refused to allow voting precincts on their campuses. Students want those sites open by Feb. 12th.
Students from N.C. Agricultural & Technical State University, UNC Greensboro and Western Carolina University filed the litigation in federal court on January 27th, claiming that the SBE is violating their constitutional rights to vote by restricting their access to convenient on-campus voting because of their age.
Each campus had an early voting site during the 2024 presidential elections.
Officials with the Guilford County Board of Elections and in Jackson County were also included in the lawsuit.
“This case is about targeted efforts to place additional, unnecessary, burdensome, and ultimately unjustifiable obstacles between students at three North Carolina universities — including the nation’s largest historically Black university — and this fundamental constitutional right, “ the lawsuit states, adding, “For multiple election cycles, [over 40,000] students have been able to vote early at early voting sites on their campuses. Having that on-campus access has been no mere convenience — it has been critical for overcoming the barriers that student voters face when they attempt to access the franchise, including lack of personal transportation, unfamiliarity with off-campus geography, demanding class and work schedules that leave little time for travel, and limited financial resources. For many students, on-campus early voting enables access to the franchise.”
“Moreover…,” the federal lawsuit continued, “… because same day voter registration is available at early voting sites and not election day polling sites, the on-campus accessibility was critical to ensuring not only that registered voters were able to vote, but that young North Carolinians who were voting for the very first time or updating their voter registration were able to do so in time to participate in the state’s elections.”
The students’ lawsuit maintained that the SBE’s Jan.13th decision not to allow early voting sites on the college campuses “…would disproportionately burden young and Black voters and denigrated students who advocated for their rights [and] intentionally target the rights of young voters.”
Republican election board members have generally offered that on-campus early voting sites were problematic because of problems with parking, and weak early voting totals in the past. Those GOP board members maintained that the cost of opening those early voting sites did not justify the expense or the effort.
But in the lawsuit, the college students had an answer for that.
“The real reason for the elimination of on-campus early voting at these universities appears to be a judgment that student voters — and disproportionately Black student voters — do not deserve the same level of accessibility as other voters in their counties. That judgment contradicts the Constitution and basic principles of equal treatment.”
Republican conservatives counter that there will be more early voting sites across the state this midterm primary election than during the last one in 2022. Conservatives also argue that N.C. A&T State University has never had a midterm primary early voting site, so students there aren’t losing anything. They note that of the 17 early voting sites in Guilford County for the 2024 elections, the least used was on N.C. A&T’s campus.
But advocates for the A&T midterm early voting site argue because N.C. A&T never had a midterm early voting site before does not mean it shouldn’t have one now. And if generating more on-campus early voting traffic is an issue for the campus, then maybe the Guilford County Board of Elections should work with the university to increase traffic there, rather than eliminate it.
Several students from N.C. A&T traveled from Greensboro to Raleigh on January 13th to demand an early voting site for the midterm at their school. Instead of denying their right, observers say, election officials should have immediately pledged to work with them to improve the situation there.
