WS Chronicle

BY TODD LUCK 

THE CHRONICLE

Winston-Salem State University will once again not have an early voting site after the North Carolina Board of Elections upheld the Forsyth BOE primary early voting plan on Wednesday, Feb. 10.

The Forsyth BOE voted 2-1 in December to approve a plan with 11 sites. Fleming El-Amin, the sole Democrat on the board, was the “no” vote, because he wanted Sunday voting and one additional site at WSSU, which had an early voting site before the 2014 election.

When Ken Raymond became chair of the current board in 2013, he said he wouldn’t allow a site at the university because he claimed there was an election law violation there in 2010 involving a professor giving credit to students for voting. El-Amin submitted his plan to the state BOE for consideration because he said it was unfair to hold a five year-old incident against the students.

“All these accusations against Winston-Salem State University are based on innuendos, there’s no factual basis behind them and because of that, I’m here to defend this site as an early voting site,” El-Amin told the state board, during their teleconference meeting last week.

The Forsyth BOE in 2010 looked into claims made by Raymond, who was then a pole observer. Raymond was never able to find the professor who supposedly gave the credit. The local board at the time found no violation had occurred since there was no accusation of anything being given to the students to vote for a specific party or candidate.

However, the five member N.C. BOE gave little, if any weight, to the accusation. Forsyth BOE member Stuart Russell, who argued for the majority early plan, said that the alleged incident was only a factor in Raymond’s opposition to the site and not the other board members. He told the State BOE that an early voting plan not including WSSU passed unanimously in 2014 and that the WSSU site didn’t come up for this year’s primary before the meeting when the board voted on the plan.

El-Amin said he had tried to reach consensus with the other board members in 2014. He was trying to do the same this year before he heard concerns from constituents, including a 500-signature petition from WSSU students and another 500-signature petition from Democracy NC, asking for a site at the university.

“I think it’s somewhat pretentious of us to think we should not respond to the concerns of the broader community, no matter when those concerns are brought to us,” he told the state BOE.

WSSU Student Government President Kyle Brown told the state board both in a letter and over the phone during the meeting, that freshmen aren’t allowed to park on campus. He said it’s a more than 30-minute walk to get to the closest early voting site at the downtown BOE office. He said freshmen without transportation were disenfranchised when the on-campus voting site was taken away and he gave nearly 100 students a ride to the poles himself in 2014.

“It was discouraging that a site was taken away when just a year ago I was able to walk down the street and vote at the Anderson Center on my campus,” Brown told the board.

The state BOE voted 3-2 along party lines to uphold the existing early voting plan without WSSU. The Republican board members cited the unanimous approval of the 2014 early voting plan without the university in it and the university being on spring break during most of the early voting period in their decision, though El-Amin argued the site is also used by the surrounding area. WSSU being the only college in the city that had an early voting site was also discussed.

One fact that didn’t come up was that WSSU freshmen not having access to their own vehicles is unique among the city’s large colleges with student residents. Salem College and UNCSA both allow freshmen to park on campus. Wake Forest University has an off-campus freshmen lot that students are shuttled to and from.

Both El-Amin and Brown said they were disappointed with the state board’s decision. El-Amin said he plans to propose the site again for the general election, a move Brown said he fully supports.