As on-campus polling places are threatened in Texas, young voters face barriers

Kristina Samuel, a Texas A&M University senior, remembers voting in the March 2020 primary her freshman year. The line at Memorial Student Center stretched long that day. Samuel said she had to wait three hours to vote and barely made it in time for her next class.

“None of the other students I knew, none of my friends, none of them voted that day because it was just insanity. And we were all freshmen, and we didn’t have cars to go to another polling location,” Samuel said.

Over the summer, when most students were away from campus, the Brazos County Commissioners Court voted to remove the student center's early voting polling site. That means the line at the center Samuel saw in 2020 could be even longer on Election Day.

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Samuel, president of the campus chapter of MOVE Texas, which registers voters and encourages them to turn out, had advocated for the reinstatement of the student center as an early polling location. The court decided against a motion to reinstate the location Sept. 27. County Judge Duane Peters said it was "pretty much impossible" logistically to add a location at that late date.

“I can’t imagine this year with it not being there, what the lines are going to look like on Election Day,” Samuel said.

Texas A&M is the latest university in Texas to lose a polling place, after recent battles over voting access at Texas State University and Prairie View A&M University, as college students call for greater accessibility to voting.

Low turnout, barriers to voting

Youth voter turnout in Texas increased by 13 percentage points from 2016 to 2020, according to data analyzed and presented by the Tufts University Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Voter registration for people ages 18-24 in June 2022 was 19% higher than in June 2018, according to the center.

But voters ages 18-24 had the lowest voter turnout in Texas, as a percentage of the voter population, in November 2020 relative to other age segments, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation presentation of Census Bureau data. Only 43% of people ages 18-24 voted, compared with more than half of those ages 25-34 and even higher percentages in older populations.

Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor, said midterm elections historically draw lower turnout, and that's also true for young voters.

"I think, simply put, you will see a significant drop in turnout among the younger college crowd if you don't have a polling place on or very near campus," Rottinghaus said.

Half of the state's 36 public universities have an on-campus early voting locating this year, and that rate is 20% for Texas' nine historically Black colleges and universities, according to a tally by The Texas Tribune.

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Kennedy Fears, president of the Texas Rising chapter at Huston-Tillotson University — an advocacy, voter participation and organizing group affiliated with the Texas Freedom Network — and Central Texas advocacy field organizer for the organization, said students have been advocating for an on-campus early voting location.

"Not having an early voting location on campus — sad to say — is the new normal for my university, since the last time we had an early voting location on our campus was back in 2018 when I first arrived at the university," Fears said.

There is on-campus Election Day voting.

Caitlyn Shrewsbury, a senior at Stephen F. Austin University in East Texas and president of the campus Texas Rising chapter, would like to see a ballot box on her campus. There is a polling location a couple of blocks away from campus.

She said she has registered more freshmen this year than in years past. This would be exciting to her, but she's afraid the newly registered voters won’t turn out to cast ballots.

“I work on campus, and I’m a tutor on campus. I tutor government,” Shrewsbury said. “I talk to my students, and I register them to vote, and they ask me 'Well, can I vote on campus?' And I have to say no. I just know from the look in their eyes that they’re not going to go vote.”

Jacquelyn Martinez, vice president of the student body, said the university's student government association is offering rides to the polls and did so in 2020.

A space on campus previously used for polling is currently being used for another purpose, university spokesperson Graham Garner said. Garner said he was not aware of any complaints or concerns from students regarding the decision.

Federal funding allowed for on-campus early voting in 2020, Nacogdoches County Elections Administrator Todd Stallings said.

Last month, Bexar County commissioners voted to reinstate an early voting location at Texas A&M University-San Antonio after students complained that it was not slated to host early voting, according to the campus publication The Mesquite.

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In 2018, Texas State University nearly lost its on-campus voting location. Hays County commissioners voted to expand voting hours after the Texas Civil Rights Project, on behalf of two Texas State students, MOVE Texas Action Fund and the League of Women Voters of Hays County, sent a letter to the county threatening to file a lawsuit, The Texas Tribune reported.

Students at Prairie View A&M University, a historically Black university, sued Waller County in 2018 because voters did not have the option to vote on campus or in the city of Prairie View for the first week of early voting, The Texas Tribune reported. The Commissioners Court then extended hours on three days of previously scheduled voting at the student center and weekend Prairie View City Hall early voting hours. Students in the lawsuit said the lack of an on-campus location violated federal law and the U.S. Constitution, the Tribune reported.

Candidates look to youth voters

Organizer Alex Birnel, founder of the San Antonio-based nonprofit MOVE Texas affiliated with the Texas A&M chapter, said he questions the idea of youth voter apathy because the hurdles to vote — securing transportation, finding time, and getting registered — are so high.

“We have to make the case back that this is exactly what leads to the perceptions of youth apathy. I shirk at the concept of youth apathy. And so we talk about how well we’re supporting the youth vote with resources, like accessible locations,” Birnel said, noting that voters are not registered automatically in Texas, nor can they register online.

Candidates from both parties are looking to youth voters for victory. Democratic gubernatorial challenger Beto O'Rourke campaigned at 15 college campuses just ahead of early voting. O'Rourke told the American-Statesman in September that his campaign's resources will be devoted to its volunteer force turning out voters facing barriers to the polls.

"By financing the ability for our volunteers to be at the doors who are the targets of voter suppression, we turn around and make them the margin of victory on election night," O'Rourke said.

Conservative candidates are connecting with organizations such as the Texas Youth Summit to mobilize youth voters. Dan Crenshaw also hosted a youth summit in downtown Houston in October.

"You've got more younger people coming of age politically, and that will define the future of Texas politics," Rottinghaus said. "So both parties want to put their stamp on that electorate and appeal to them."

Students rely on buses, rides to the polls

Brazos County Commissioner Nancy Berry, whose precinct includes the Texas A&M campus and College Station City Hall, told the Statesman she will support an early voting location in the Memorial Student Center in the future.

"A number of community people asked me if we could have the early voting at College Station City Hall. And I thought it was a good idea, because I did not hear from students," Berry said, noting City Hall's size and proximity across Texas Avenue from the university. One student, attending the July meeting at which commissioners decided to remove the on-campus early voting site, noted that most students were off campus while expressing support for the center as a polling location.

Samuel said the MOVE Texas chapter accepted nonpartisan donations to raise more than $10,000. The group had estimated for the county that it would need more than $15,000 for 115 hours of bus service to properly accommodate students' schedules. The group is working with other organizations to shuttle students three times an hour to College Station City Hall. Any leftover money will go to raising awareness about transportation, Samuel said.

"It does not surprise me in the least that this is not a new issue or the last time this issue will occur, or arise," Samuel said of previous attempts to remove early voting locations in Texas.

"I think the biggest thing we can do as organizers and as students, as young people, is to have our ear to the ground in terms of local and state politics," Samuel said.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas students worry about turnout without on-campus polling locations