Students at three North Carolina universities who had gone to court to get early voting sites on their campuses will likely not have any during this primary election, after a federal district court judge ruled against them on Sunday.
The College Democrats of North Carolina and several students from Western Carolina University, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University and University of North Carolina-Greensboro sued in late January, after election boards did not include campus sites in their early voting plans.
They argued that excluding campus early voting sites made voting more difficult for younger voters and college students, who may lack reliable transportation options, time and voting information at a higher rate than the general population.
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WCU has hosted early voting consistently since 2016, while NC A&T and UNC-Greensboro have never been chosen for midterm election cycles, although they have been included in presidential primary and general election early voting plans in the past.
While Judge William Osteen Jr. noted this distinction in his order, he ruled that students had not proven a “severe” enough burden on students’ right to vote on any of the campuses to justify changing the rules so close to the start of early voting on Feb. 12.
Election boards’ reasons for denying campus early voting sites — saving money and minimizing logistical issues, for example — outweighed the potential burden, Osteen ruled.
During the preliminary hearing in Greensboro, Osteen was skeptical of the students’ arguments, at best. Even if he had agreed that students’ voting rights were unfairly burdened by the decision to exclude early voting sites from their campuses, there were technical issues with the case.
For one, to solve the students’ problem, Osteen would have to order the college campuses to host early voting sites for 17 days. He couldn’t do that, since the colleges themselves were not part of the lawsuit. So instead, he had to rely on the likelihood that they would be willing and able to set up early voting sites with less than a week’s notice.
Plaintiff attorney Uzoma Nkwonta argued that the colleges had hosted early voting in the past, so they were likely to be able to do it again. Also, in January, WCU had agreed to provide early voting facilities. Since then, the State Board of Elections denied early voting site requests on all three campuses.
“That the universities hosted early voting sites in prior elections, or that one of them indicated over a month ago that it could do so in this election, is one thing; whether they are able or willing to do so now, only days away from the start of the early voting period, is another,” Osteen wrote.
The timing was just too tight, he ruled. According to a federal rule called the Purcell principle, judges should generally avoid changing rules close to the start of an election to avoid voter confusion and ensure that election administration runs smoothly.
Public notices about early voting site locations and times have already been published, and it would be too potentially confusing to switch it up now, especially considering that the university campuses may not be able to host early voting at this point, Osteen ruled.
“We are pleased with the outcome and agree with the court’s decision,” the State Board of Elections wrote in a statement to Carolina Public Press. “This midterm primary election is going to offer North Carolinians more opportunities to vote than any other midterm primary election in our state’s history.”
Guilford County Board of Elections Democrat Carolyn Bunker said she was disappointed, but not surprised, by the judge’s ruling.
“The Judge was correct in noting that it would have been extremely difficult — if not impossible — for the Guilford County and Jackson County Boards of Elections to secure and prepare additional voting sites in time for the primary beginning this Thursday,” she said.
“That said, the State Board of Elections clearly played a role in creating the time constraints that led to this outcome.”
While the decision on early voting sites on the three campuses may be appealed, any resolution is likely to come after early voting begins.
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