North Carolina election board denies voting site at nation’s largest HBCU for second time

By Natalie Hausmann

RALEIGH, NC - MARCH 15: North Carolina State University students head to their precinct to vote in the primaries at Pullen Community Center on March 15, 2016 in Raleigh, North Carolina. The university provided bus transportation throughout the day to the precinct. The North Carolina primaries is the state's first use of the voter ID law, which excludes student ID cards. Wake County was among the highest use of provisional ballots, where those voters had home addresses on or near campuses. The state's voter ID law is still being argued in federal court. (Photo by Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)

North Carolina’s state board of elections once again refused to provide an accessible early voting location at North Carolina A&T State University, the nation’s largest historically Black college or university.

With student activists in the front row, the GOP-controlled board rejected student pleas for an on-campus polling place in November’s general election during a Thursday vote.

Earlier this year, the board voted along party lines to deny students a voting site on their campus. Brian Kennedy of Democracy North Carolina told Democracy Docket at the time that the vote served as a “blueprint for what voter suppression across the nation can look like.”

Now, it’s happened all over again. 

Guilford County Democrats appealed to both the board and the students, facing the students directly to tell them they were welcome, despite the board voting against them.

The denial followed a series of election board votes to curtail Sunday voting – popular among black voters – across several counties.

Jeff Carmon, one of two Democrats on the state board, said some GOP county plans had “racial undertones.”

“Can we identify a single voter who is better served by having fewer opportunities to cast a ballot?” Carmon asked at the start of the meeting.