Judge denies North Carolina students' plea for early voting site at nation's largest Black college

[RandySF]

A federal judge declined to overrule Republican officials and open early voting sites on three college campuses across North Carolina, including at the United States’ largest historically Black college.

The Sunday ruling from Judge William Osteen Jr., an appointee of former President George W. Bush, deals a blow to North Carolina students’ attempt to restore the sites through a lawsuit ahead of the state’s upcoming primary election.

Despite the decision, the lawsuit is ongoing, and the students can appeal Osteen’s denial of their request for an injunction or temporary restraining order to open the sites. They can also seek court approval of the sites before early voting begins in the state’s general election.

The battle over the early voting sites began in January, when Republican members on the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) denied early voting sites at Western Carolina University (WCU); the University of North Carolina–Greensboro (UNC-G); and North Carolina A&T State University (NC A&T), the largest historically Black college or university (HCBU) in the country.




https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/judge-denies-early-voting-sites-north-carolina-universities-state-primary/

[MichMan]

1. Timing seems to be the factor behind the decision

During the preliminary hearing in Greensboro, Osteen was skeptical of the students’ arguments, at best. Even if he had agreed that students’ voting rights were unfairly burdened by the decision to exclude early voting sites from their campuses, there were technical issues with the case.

For one, to solve the students’ problem, Osteen would have to order the college campuses to host early voting sites for 17 days. He couldn’t do that, since the colleges themselves were not part of the lawsuit. So instead, he had to rely on the likelihood that they would be willing and able to set up early voting sites with less than a week’s notice.

“That the universities hosted early voting sites in prior elections, or that one of them indicated over a month ago that it could do so in this election, is one thing; whether they are able or willing to do so now, only days away from the start of the early voting period, is another,” Osteen wrote.

The timing was just too tight, he ruled. According to a federal rule called the Purcell principle, judges should generally avoid changing rules close to the start of an election to avoid voter confusion and ensure that election administration runs smoothly.

https://carolinapublicpress.org/74415/judge-denies-demands-for-early-voting-sites-on-three-nc-university-campuses/