Texas will have two weeks of early voting this year—but for students of Prairie View A&M University, a historically black college, the opportunities for early voting will be much more limited. That’s spurred an NAACP Legal Defense Fund lawsuit, TPM’s Tierney Sneed reports. The Prairie View area won’t have voting during the first week of early voting. It won’t have weekend days or evening hours. Two out of the five days when early voting will be held in Prairie View, it will be in a location that’s “off-campus and is not well-known to or frequently used by PVAMU voters.”
This can’t be explained away as standard for an area with a low population, or for that region of Texas—neighboring majority-white cities have more expansive early voting times. And the reasons the county commission offered for such limited voting times in Prairie View stink, simply put:
Members of the Defendant Commissioners Court attempted to justify the early voting plan by asserting that: it was proposed by members of both major political parties; that early voting at PVAMU was not included for the first week because it would conflict with PVAMU’s homecoming; that the “community,” particularly senior citizens, did not want or like to go onto campus at the historically-Black PVAMU; that it was difficult to park at PVAMU; and that it was too late to add early voting sites. But each of these purported justifications was refuted, uncorroborated by community members, or not supported by evidence at the October 17 hearing.
Any excuse to keep black people or young people or heaven forbid young black people from voting.
Get out the vote: Want to help Democrats vote but unsure how? Try this: click here, enter your zip code, and RSVP for a volunteer shift.