On Tuesday afternoon, the Guilford County Board of Elections voted for a plan that does not include local universities among early-voting sites this fall.
The board voted 4-1 to exclude N.C. A&T State University and UNC Greensboro from its official list of early voting sites, but added another location they called a compromise: Union Square, a shared site on Gate City Boulevard used by the two schools, Cone Health, and Guilford Technical Community College. Only Democrat Carolyn Bunker voted against the plan.
Board Chair Eugene Lester III, a Republican, said he was inclined to increase voting sites— but not to include the A&T and UNCG campuses.
The decision is a blow to local activists, who have waged a months-long campaign to ensure students have easy access to voting.
The plan includes 17 sites:
- High Point’s Deep River Recreation Center
- Washington Terrace Park
- The Roy Culler Senior Center
- The old Guilford County Courthouse
- Barber Park
- Leonard Recreation Center
- Bur-Mil Club
- Craft Recreation Center
- Lewis Recreation Center
- Guilford Cooperative Extension (also known as the “Ag Center”)
- Union Square
- Brown Recreation Center
- The Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum in Gibsonville
- Jamestown Town Hall
- Oak Ridge Town Hall
- Pleasant Garden Community Center
- Stokesdale Town Hall
Early voting will run from October 15 through 31, with sites open from 8 a.m.-7:30 p.m. Polls will be closed the first weekend, but open on Saturday, October 24; Sunday, October 25; and Saturday, October 31.
Felita Donnell, one of two Democrats on the board, joined her Republican colleagues in voting for the plan. Because the vote was not unanimous, Bunker said she plans to submit a minority plan to the State Board of Elections that would add sites at A&T and UNCG but drop Stokesdale.
“I am disappointed that our board is not more supportive of our young people and our students,” Bunker said after the vote. “We have never had large groups of any people coming to the Board of Elections, month after month, asking to be recognized to have a voting site.”
The state board has the option of approving the majority plan, the minority plan, or make its own plan. A final determination is expected in the third week in August, according to state board member Siobhan Millen.
The advocacy campaign for including campus precincts has included student-led initiatives.
“I felt like it was important that A&T students were in the room,” said Kayla Jackson, a second-year Aggie who attended Tuesday’s meeting.
University sites have been used for both early and election day voting in presidential elections, but neither has ever been used in midterms. Republican members of the board, including Lester, Kathryn Lindley, and Peter O’Connell, have cited the relatively low turnout numbers at the A&T and UNCG sites in general elections as the reason they aren’t needed.
After the vote, A&T students crowded the dais to ask Donnell, the only Black member of the board, why she voted with the Republican majority.
Union Square is about a mile and a half from A&T’s campus—a 30-minute walk. The old downtown courthouse is closer. Jackson, who voted in the spring primaries, said she and her friends don’t have cars and had to walk from downtown to cast a ballot.
“It was interesting that that was the compromise,” Jackson said. “Because you know a compromise is normally when everyone gets a little bit of something, but we still didn’t get a site that’s conveniently walkable for us.”
“We don’t have the votes to get what you wanted,” Donnell replied, adding she was trying to avoid sending multiple plans to the state board. Getting a site at Union Square, she said, is “better than zero.” But students continued to press her.
“I want you, Mrs. Donnell, to walk from campus to Union Square,” said one student.
Tuesday’s split echoes what happened ahead of the spring primaries, when two plans were presented to the State Board of Elections. The state board, which also has a Republican majority, approved the Republican-backed majority plan that did not include the universities.
Bunker is not optimistic that the state board’s vote will go her way this time, either. “We will not get it,” Bunker said. “I think their main goal is to suppress votes, especially of Black and brown voters.”
Early-voting sites on college campuses has been an issue beyond the Triad. Students at Western Carolina University, NC State University, and Elon University have also pushed for early-voting sites, without success.
Voting rights advocates say limiting on-campus voting sites raises equity concerns.
“There’s a lack of appreciation that young people constitute a constitutionally protected class of voters,” Yael Bromberg, a voting-rights expert and adjunct professor of law at American University, told The Assembly in December. “And then when talking about HBCUs, and you’re talking about Black youth, now you have two classes of constitutionally protected voters.”
Republicans have been accused of purposely excluding universities because of young people’s tendency to lean Democratic. Local board members have reported pressure to drop Sunday voting as well, a day when Black churches have historically organized efforts to help their congregants vote.
“I grow increasingly concerned by county boards removal of sites and Sunday voting options in clear opposition to public outcry,” Jeff Carmon, a Democrat on the state board, told The Assembly. He said he is also “disturbed by the alleged coordination” on early voting sites by the former elections liaison for the state auditors office, Dallas Woodhouse, which WUNC and others reported on last week.
Although she recognizes that the state may not vote in favor of her plan, Bunker echoed students’ calls to continue the fight. “We have to keep moving forward,” she said. “We can’t give up. This is a battle, one battle in a long war.”
