Student leaders from Prairie View A&M University, a Historic Black University, are requesting a polling location be located on their campus. Prairie View A&M is in Prairie View, TX in Waller County, a very rural county. The university is roughly an hour northeast of Houston.
At many colleges across the nation not all students have vehicles. So many students walk everywhere they need to go. Locating a voting precinct on campus will allow all students to make their voices heard through the ballot box.
This is a great idea and something that should be implemented at every college campus across the country. Not that it will. Unless students, civil rights leaders and supporters put pressure on their local elections offices and state leaders to pass legislation requiring each college and university have its own designated polling station.
Every person over 18 years old deserves the right to vote. College students are no exception. A study by a nonpartisan group, Nonprofit Vote, showed turnout among young voters under 29 years old was highest in four swing states.
Since the Supreme Court repealed a portion of the Voting Rights Act earlier this year, many elections officials and state leaders in Republican-led states are working overtime to ensure all young, disabled, people of color, poor and elderly people can not vote.
This is why it is so important to support these student leaders at Prairie View A&M and all universities across the nation wishing to have a polling location on their campuses.
