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Voting at HBCUs Hit Record Levels

Photo credit: Marci Fuller/The Courtbouillon Activist students held a rally on the Dillard University campus on Election Day to encourage students to vote.

Black College Wire

After months of on-campus voter registration drives, rallies led by celebrities and courting by candidates, the ranks of young voters swelled to record levels, according to reports from HBCU newspapers and mainstream news media.

While many colleges reported that voting went smoothly, long lines were common. At some schools, mix-ups delayed or prevented some students from voting.

Many students ran into problems proving they were eligible to vote. Some were told that they brought inadequate identification to the polls. Others said they had registered but discovered their names were not recorded in their precinct's lists. A few reported problems with voting machines and misunderstandings about the provisional ballots. And some alleged voter intimidation took place when poll watchers challenged the students' right to vote.

Meanwhile, there were reports of improvements at two schools where there were voting difficulties in 2000. Here are snapshots from across the country:

Albany State University: A controversy erupted at the polling station serving Georgia's Albany State University, where "a lot of students were not permitted to vote because they were not registered in Dougherty County," reports Ashley Hindsman, editor of The Student Voice. Cassandra Lewis, Student Government Association president, and Portia Holmes Shields, president of the university, contacted local officials asking for more provisional ballots to be sent to the school, Hindsman reported.

Benedict College: Republican poll watchers challenged the legality of dozens of voters, many of them students, temporarily delaying their casting ballots, reported The State newspaper of Columbia, S.C. A U.S. congressman who was at the precinct told The State that the poll watchers were disenfranchising voters. Students could use provisional ballots, which later could be challenged, said Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C.

Bethune-Cookman College: Students turned out to let their voices be heard, some during early voting, others on Election Day. Jeanne Erfurt, a volunteer election official, estimated that by early afternoon, close to 500 students had voted.

For a few, getting the vote in was not so easy. "At the beginning of the semester, I registered to vote through a voters drive aimed at students, but I never received confirmation in the mail," said Kofi Jack, a junior from Jacksonville, Fla. Instead, Jack was told on voting day to use a provisional ballot. He did.

Students who were turned away had access to on-site counseling from attorneys Rick Posen and Steve Powell. They encouraged the students to fill out the provisional ballots despite any conflicting information the students might have received.

Dillard University: State and city officials were not in agreement about the cause of the delays at the polling stations for Dillard and nearby Xavier University of Louisiana.

Outside the polling place, a public library across the street from Dillard's campus, the young voters huddled under umbrellas for up to five hours.

Julie C. Andrews, election commissioner-in-charge for the precinct serving Dillard, told the school's Courtbouillon newspaper that turnout from the university is typically less than 500 people. By Nov. 2, however, roughly 1,800 Dillard students were registered, and Andrews anticipated about 1,500 arriving to vote.

Photo credit: Marci Fuller/The Courtbouillon Dillard students waiting to vote were caught in intermittent showers as they waited in line. By late evening, it became a heavy downpour.

An estimated 57 percent of the registered voters showed up, compared with a 16 percent turnout during a local election in September, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported.

Andrews praised the massive student turnout. She also noted that many students did not carry adequate identification. "The problem I see, particularly with the Dillard students, is that they have not read, or they have not even paid attention to what was going on on TV. Most of the people that came in from the community were prepared. They came in with their voter registration card and IDs and were ready to go."

Florida A&M University: Students were spared a repeat of the 2000 national election, when dozens were wrongly turned away from the polls by officials who claimed the students were not registered to vote. That incident prompted hundreds to sit in at the state Capitol in Tallahassee. Local and national voter protection groups vowed they would monitor the 2004 election to prevent voter disenfranchisement. The Famuan student newspaper reported long lines, but otherwise uneventful voting Nov. 2.

Still, the election season was not problem-free: In October, the Associated Press reported on a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation of 1,500 suspicious voter registration forms that designated Florida students as Republicans. Most were students at FAMU, Florida State University or Tallahassee Community College, the report said. By calling students, authorities determined that many of the suspicious registrations were false.

North Carolina A&T State U.: Chief elections judge Dawnita Lawrence told the A&T Register that the student turnout was possibly the largest ever.

"It is a pleasure to see so many youth dedicated to voting," said Dorothy Brown, a longtime community activist in the Greensboro area and poll observer on campus. The Nov. 2 turnout was the biggest she had seen since she started observing polls in 1978, she said.

Along with standing in line for hours, many students had to wait for poll officials to verify that they were properly registered. Ron Carthen, a senior journalism major with a broadcast-production concentration, was one of the last students to vote. After being in line more than two hours, he was forced to vote using a provisional ballot because of confusion about his registration. Although he had to fill out additional paperwork, he expected his vote to count.

"It should," Carthen said. "It better."

One of the most common problems students faced was proving their residency, said Jennifer Weiser, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law who specializes in student voting rights. This year, national voting law required first-time voters who registered by mail to present identification. But states decided what type of I.D. would be acceptable, so the rules differed across the country, she said. Some places did not accept college identification cards. Some turned students away if they could not present identification showing a local address.

Prairie View A&M University: A nationally watched showdown over students' voting rights culminated Nov. 2 with record numbers of Prairie View students going to the polls. The Panther newspaper reported that by 1 p.m., more than 1,000 students had voted at the Waller County Community Center.

A high turnout had been predicted after students' victory this year against the county's former district attorney, who had publicly threatened to prosecute Prairie View students who attempted to register in a local March primary.

He claimed, wrongly, that the students could not declare residency. Students sued, alleging voter intimidation, and held a march. Texas' secretary of state ultimately upheld the students' right to vote.

According to Weiser, the New York University lawyer who tracks student voter disenfranchisement, the federal law allows students to register and vote in the place they consider home, which can be their campus community. That is where many live for more than 10 months a year, hold jobs, pay local taxes and are affected by the decisions of local officials, she said. "What states and localities cannot do is presume that a student is a resident of wherever their parents live, and put the burden on the student to prove that he lives in the college community," she said.

Though the students prevailed in defending their right to vote in Waller County, they were unsuccessful in their additional campaign to get an on-campus polling place.

Xavier University: At a precinct serving Xavier University, the last vote was cast a little after 1:30 a.m., about six hours after polls were scheduled to close.

By some estimates, 75 percent of registered voters turned out.

For some voters, the wait was eight hours.

The exact cause of the delays remained unknown a week after the election. Louisiana and New Orleans officials offered the news media a variety of theories.

Some said the polls were overwhelmed by the huge turnout, or questioned the staffing and equipping of the polling station. But others said that some of the students might not have been properly registered during massive campus voter registration drives, causing delays when poll commissioners tried to verify the registrations. Also, the phone lines to the registrar of voters were clogged throughout the day, slowing the verifications, reported the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Contributing were Ashley Hindsman, editor, The Student Voice, Albany State University; Shearon Roberts, editor-in-chief, and Ashley Harris, staff writer, at Dillard University's The Courtbouillon; Chad Roberts, editor in chief, The A&T Register, North Carolina A&T University; Kari Cobham of Voice of the Wildcats at Bethune Cookman College and the staff and archives of The Famuan, Florida A&M University and of The Panther, Prairie View A&M University.

Posted Nov. 10, 2004