N.C. A&T State students protest at State Board of Elections.

RALEIGH – North Carolina A&T State University students packed the North Carolina State Board of Elections meeting in Raleigh to support an early voting site on their campus for the upcoming primaries. 

When the board adopted a plan without a voting site on the Greensboro campus, students stood with their signs near the front of the room behind the presenters’ desk. 

After a student said board members wouldn’t look them in the eye, board Chairman Francis De Luca threatened to call the cops on students if they didn’t leave. One student said the outcome would have been different if the group was white. De Luca said he resented that suggestion.

Jeff Carmon, the state board’s only Black member, walked up to the students and encouraged them to keep working. 

The student protest was just one mark in a contentious meeting where the state board’s Republican majority decided that Elon University and Western Carolina University also will not have early voting sites for the primary, even though those colleges have a history of hosting polling places. 

Western Carolina University in Jackson County has had a polling place on campus since 2016 that’s been used in five general elections and four primaries, according to a document prepared for the board. The state board voted 3-2 to get rid of it. 

Without the campus site, the closest polling place for students will be a recreation center nearly two miles away. Students without transportation will have to walk along a four-lane highway and through a meadow to get there. 

Closing the campus voting site would not save money, but “would create barriers to voting for young, rural residents,” Jackson County Board member Betsy Swift told the state board. Sixty-four percent of students don’t have vehicles, she said. 

But Jackson County Board Chairman Bill Thompson said parking on campus is scarce, and students will find their way to the recreation center.  “Students are adults,” he said. “They’ve demonstrated above-average ability and mobility.”

Taylor Bucklin, a Raleigh resident and recent Western Carolina University graduate, said getting rid of the campus voting site will hurt student engagement and reduce voter turnout. “This is an awful, evil decision,” she said. “I don’t agree with it one bit.”

Board member Siobhan Millen, a Democrat, said she was disappointed but not surprised by the votes. “We want to encourage kids to vote, so I’m kind of disappointed how it came out,” she said. “Student voting is in the crosshairs.”

A&T students gathered outside after the board rejected a campus site. 

Zayveon Davis, a voter engagement leader at the HBCU, said shuttles would be available for students to vote at the nearest polling place. “It’s really disappointing that we came all this way for our voices not to be heard, for us to be laughed at to our face, and for our votes not to be protected, but I’m extremely proud of the effort that we did today,” Davis said. “So I hope that everybody leaves here knowing that your voice does matter. Your vote does matter. And if it didn’t, they wouldn’t be working this hard to take it away.”

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