GREENSBORO, N.C. — On Tuesday, Guilford County's Board of Elections voted to approve new early voting sites - including one on North Carolina A&T State University's campus.
A group of North Carolina A&T State University students and Color Of Change, a racial justice organization, raised issues of voting accessibility to the Guilford County Board of Elections with the goal of securing an early voting location on A&T’s campus for the 2020 primary elections.
According to the Director of the Board of Elections, Charlie Collicutt, the board approved 15 different sites for the March 3, 2020 Primary Election. He says the Dudley Building at North Carolina A&T is one of those sites.
Collicut says, A&T had an early voting site in the November General Election in 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016. He says, this did not include Primaries, just General Elections.
Officials say, the site was never removed from campus, rather, each election has its own Plan of Implementation, which was created from scratch each time.
Collicut says, in contrast, Election Day precincts are chosen once and carry on from election to election to election.
The student group says including A&T as an early voting site satisfies their initial demands. These Aggies argued the 2020 primary election is slated to take place over spring break at the nation’s largest public HBCU, leaving many students at a "voting disadvantage in the wake of a clear suppression tactic."
