North Carolina students sue election officials over early voting website
The lawsuit focuses on three early voting sites that were rejected earlier this month.
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North Carolina’s College Democrats and some North Carolina students sued state and local election officials on Tuesday in an attempt to reinstate three early voting sites on college campuses. The Republican-controlled Board of Elections voted to reject early voting sites ahead of the 2026 primary in March.
The lawsuit focuses on denied sites at North Carolina A&T State University, the largest historically black university in North Carolina; the University of North Carolina at Greensboro; and Western Carolina University. (An early voting site at Elon University was also denied.) The lawsuit alleges that North Carolina A&T students fought for an early voting site on campus ahead of the 2020 election. Western Carolina University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro have operated such sites since 2016 and at least 2012, respectively.
The plaintiffs argued that the shutdown “deliberately targets the rights of young voters.”
“This case is a targeted effort to erect additional, unnecessary, onerous, and ultimately unreasonable barriers between students at three North Carolina universities, including the largest historically black university in the United States, and this fundamental constitutional right,” the lawsuit states.
Despite the closures, the state will have a total of 10 on-campus early voting sites this year, up from nine in 2022. Raleigh News & Observer reported.
