AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
Election Day is just a couple of weeks away, but in many states, early voting is already underway. In Greensboro, North Carolina, hundreds of college students marched to the polls on Thursday last week, the first day of early voting there.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: Democracy looks like.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: This is what democracy looks like.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: This is what democracy looks like.
RASCOE: They were protesting the fact that there are no on-campus early voting sites at two large schools, UNC Greensboro and North Carolina A&T University, the largest HBCU in the country. Shia Rozier is a senior at North Carolina A&T. She's also the co-founder of Protect Ours NC, a student organization seeking to make voting more accessible for North Carolina students. Shia, thank you for being with us.
SHIA ROZIER: Thank you for having me.
RASCOE: Why was it upsetting or a problem for students that there aren't early voting sites on campus? Like, it sounds like you were able to march to a voting site. So why was this a protest for you guys?
ROZIER: Yeah, I think it kind of comes down to two things. One, what accessibility truly means for college students. You know, North Carolina A&T, the largest HBCU, just our last incoming class with over 3,500 students. But of those students, you know, there's a policy that students can't have their car within their first year. So all of them are essentially landlocked onto campus, meaning that in order to get to the polls, they now have to get a Lyft or get a Uber or get somebody to take them at a time where gas prices are extremely high, creating an additional barrier to the poll.
And then also another problem that we have is that, you know, it's not really a resources issue because this year we saw our local board of elections grant another polling site to an area that had not been protesting and asking for months and months on end for a polling site. So it just demonstrated that they can give resources and polling site to the places that they want, but it just isn't at North Carolina A&T or UNCG.
RASCOE: Well, what was the march to the polls like? I mean, Greensboro is not known for being, like, a walking city.
ROZIER: Definitely not. That was a march that was organized by our A&T chapter Dems. And, you know, I think it was just to demonstrate that, you know, despite the board of elections' decisions, that they wouldn't be able to deter us from going to vote. Polling site or not, we're going to go and vote. Greensboro definitely is not a walkable city. It was over a 45-minute walk across train tracks, and it was even more inaccessible than the last polling site that we had away from campus. And I think we're just getting further and further from what true democracy looks like.
RASCOE: Have there been early voting sites on campus in previous elections? And was there any explanation for why there weren't any there this year?
ROZIER: Yeah, so as we look to early polling sites at North Carolina A&T, for the presidential election we certainly had one. And I think, you know, you'll hear from our board of elections that we've never had one in a midterm election. And, you know, I think it was a problem then, and it's a problem now. And what we've been saying is that, you know, the past mistakes shouldn't set the precedent for the present, especially when we're asked for something different. We are using voting planned sites from 2022 to determine what accessibility looks like for the class of 2030, and that's a real problem. Different times call for different measures. And as representatives, it's their duty to listen to their constituents and what they're coming to them with now.
If we look at what it is that they've been saying - it fluctuates depending on the day, whether it's parking, whether it's, you know, the location - however, anytime that we've reached out to them to have one-on-one meetings to address any of their concerns and, you know, be able to remediate them, the people who have voted against our polling site have not reached out. So I think these are things that they're not looking to remediate. They just don't want to give us a polling site.
RASCOE: Do you know, like, if this voting issue has been an issue at other colleges and universities? Like, not having polling sites on campus?
ROZIER: Indeed, and it's fluctuated. I know that for the primaries, Western Carolina had their polling site taken away. I know at NC State now, theirs has been removed from their student union to a more inaccessible portion of their campus. Elizabeth City State is facing other issues like this. And I'm sure there's other ones that are facing this, not just in North Carolina, but throughout the nation. So I think right now we are all at a crossroads where we are deciding to stand up for what is ours and, you know, demand what we need and then also begin to build what we deserve.
RASCOE: That's Shia Rozier. She's a senior at North Carolina A&T studying public relations. Thank you so much for joining us.
ROZIER: Thank you again for having me. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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