Letter writer: Early voting plan will help students

Graphic by Lori Deaton

At last month’s Buncombe County Board of Elections meeting, the board approved an early voting plan that established early voting locations at both A-B Tech and UNC Asheville. As a UNCA student, I personally know just how important it can be to have an early voting site on North Carolina college campuses.

In March, I volunteered as a Democracy North Carolina poll monitor for the state’s primary election and witnessed firsthand many of the challenges student voters face. Some students I spoke with were turned away because they did not have accepted identification under the new voter ID law. Others were not registered correctly and relied on same-day registration to correct problems. Even more faced physical or logistical barriers to voting at locations far from their workplaces or school.

Having an on-campus polling location will help address many of these problems. These convenient sites greatly assist students with disabilities and those who do not have easy access to transportation off campus. Other students will be voting for the first time since the photo ID requirement was enacted. A site on campus will help students who forgot or did not know they needed photo ID to vote to quickly retrieve it and vote a regular ballot. Plus, if there are issues with voter registration or other problems at the polls, early voting allows students to fix these issues and vote in this important election.

I applaud the Board of Elections for hearing our calls for campus locations and including early voting sites at UNCA and A-B Tech. Students and other millennial voters are a large demographic in our area and in many parts of the state, and their voices should be heard. The Board of Elections’ expansion of campus locations means they won’t just be heard, but that they matter.

— Edward Peters
Senior at UNC Asheville and organizing intern at Democracy North Carolina
Asheville

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5 thoughts on “Letter writer: Early voting plan will help students

  1. Lulz

    LOL, just more BS by the left to gather votes by those easily manipulated.

    So your voices should be heard but how about opening up your wallets too? Because your voices and convoluted way of voting costs too much money. And considering that most of you have zilch real world experience, lead to people being elected on labels instead of qualifications. For one big example of this, Mr 1st black President says ISIS is diminishing yet the head of the CIA just gave testimony that contradicts that. Mr 1st black President is and has always ridden his race not only to office, but as a scapegoat and as a way to escape criticism for his bad policies lulz. Courtesy of a lot of young college fools that have no clue what they’re voting for.

    • bsummers

      So you think college students shouldn’t be allowed to vote? Twenty-sixth Amendment out the window.

      You’d probably get rid of the 14th and the 19th, too. Minorities and women are also too “easily manipulated”, right?

    • NFB

      “Courtesy of a lot of young college fools that have no clue what they’re voting for.”

      The same can be said of the US Congress — courtesy of a lot of Fox “News” viewers who have no clue what they are voting for.

      • Ken Hanke

        It is interesting that the…uh…conservative side here would prefer voting be restricted to people more likely to vote like them.

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