Residents trickle in to vote early at new campus polling stations
The University of Houston’s Student Center was bustling over the weekend with pre-Halloween festivities, a lively pep rally, sorority and fraternity events, and, for the first time, early voting.
“It’s been a fair turnout, and people who have voted are very appreciative that the voting is happening here,” Bruce Davis, an alternative election judge for Harris County, said Monday.
Numbers at UH’s polling station — like those at two other new early-voting locations — were modest.
This year, the Harris County Clerk’s Office introduced three new early polling locations — at UH, Texas Southern University and Houston Community College’s
West Loop campus — in hopes of reaching at least 50,000 more voters, mostly students, according to Michael Winn, administrator of elections for the Harris County Clerk’s office, which oversees elections. The target includes 40,000 new voters at UH alone. The office is now led by Democrat Diane Trautman, who unseated Republican incumbent
Stan Stanart last year and has backed countywide election centers to encourage higher turnout.
As of Wednesday evening, the early-voting totals were 750 at UH, 452 at TSU and 796 at HCC’s West Loop campus. But officials were not worried. According to Winn, it’s all a part of the process as people adjust to their new polling locations. In the meantime, officials are keeping a watchful eye ahead of next year’s primary and presidential elections.
“We just want to begin to lay the foundation for those locations to already be in place so people will be accustomed to going to those locations and utilizing the facilities,” Winn said.
In other words, the county is gearing up for 2020, and reaching students is a top priority, said Winn, who added that younger voters — those 18 to 35 — are the least likely to vote.
Census Bureau statistics showed that while 18- to 29year-olds as a group have been the least likely to vote, voting among the group rose from 20 percent in 2014 to 36 percent — the largest percentage-point increase for any age group. Voters age 65 and up have showed up to vote more than any other group.
“What we’re trying to do now is create the avenue in which (students are) able to vote and give them the opportunity to do that at those institutions of higher learning,” Winn said.
Educating people on polling locations — especially new ones — can be a challenge, said Jason Smith, vice chancellor and vice president for governmental relations at UH. The university has been trying to educate students through the press and social media, and even with lower numbers compared to established polling stations, university officials feel confident.
The hope and expectation, Smith and Winn said, is that the number of voters using the newer polling stations on campus will increase and that they will be familiar enough to voters to use in primaries.
“It’s so important that we make voting accessible, and having the number of people we simply have on campus, making that accessible especially to our students is important to (UH),” Smith said. “Making them understand the importance of participating in our democracy” is also essential.
For university students, faculty and staff on campus, the new locations have been convenient — so much so that Smith says UH is already in preliminary talks with the county clerk about hosting an early election location for UH-Downtown, to be launched by the 2020 primaries.
“It saves a lot of time,” said Lakhte Zahra, a UH junior who turned out on a quiet Monday afternoon. In previous years, Zahra would have to search online to see where to vote, but now searching for the nearest polling place is easier, and with some professors offering extra credit to students who vote, it’s given her even more incentive to cast a ballot.
She even brought a friend — freshman and firsttime voter Atika Fatima.
“It’s more student involvement,” Fatima said. “It helps the younger generation to vote.”.
At TSU’s early voting station at the now-closed Robert J. Terry Library, the atmosphere Monday was quiet and the polling place was frequented by curious community members.
Karla Brown, a teacher who works near TSU, said she was disappointed that another location nearby was closed, but she was surprised that a new one was opened at the historically black college.
“I wish both could be open,” said Brown, acknowledging that an oncampus polling station is an asset for TSU students and faculty. However, she added, “Typically when people do things for years, it’s hard to change.”
Brown said she had assumed nearby voters may be less likely to cast their ballots at the campus polling location. She decided to come to the early-voting location to see “how accessible it was and whether it would be complicated for people in the community,” but with its free parking and lack of lines Monday, Brown said she was in and out within 10 minutes.
At HCC’s new location, tucked away at the end of a long hallway within the school, residents of the surrounding communities, including Bellaire, and those between 50 and 70 were the most commonly seen at the campus poll, according to Ann Edwards, the presiding judge.
Though some 18-yearolds showed up to vote for the first time, Edwards said she’s been told that most students didn’t have information about the polling location, and that there should have been more promotion of the location. Volunteers also received complaints from senior citizens, stating that the room was inconveniently located and too far from the front door, she said. Several students sitting near the polling place and walking HCC’s halls stated they would not be voting.
Elijah Bui-Dang, a freshman at Houston Baptist University who volunteered to help out with the polls, said he hoped the presence of a young face would prompt others to cast ballots.
“It’s a shame we don’t have more of my peers to come out and vote,” said
Bui-Dang, adding that more people seemed to be interested in the coming presidential elections than in what’s going on in the city, including the race for mayor.
Meanwhile, other campuses in Harris County, including select Lone Star College and HCC locations, are hosting early-voting locations and gearing up for Election Day. Prairie View A&M University, which has experienced strife over adequately providing an opportunity for students to vote on campus, is not hosting early voting this year on its main campus but will have a polling place on Election Day (PVAMU’s Northwest campus in Houston, however, will host early voting for Harris County).
Frank Jackson, the government relations officers at Prairie View A&M, said students have had less of an issue with early voting not being offered on campus this year. But as the excitement builds for 2020, so are discussions between Waller County and the university about placing polling stations on campus next year.
“The county is recommending centralizing voting spots in the city” of Prairie View, with talks of moving a polling place to the local community center, said Jackson. But Prairie View students are against it and are adamant about their on-campus voting boxes.
“They want to maintain the voting spot in the Student Center,” Jackson said. “That’s the best place for them to get the greatest amount participation.”