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A standing-room only crowd filled the multi-purpose room at the Forsyth
County Government Center for the Forsyth County Board of Elections meeting
on Aug. 11.
Linda Petrou
Fleming El-Amin
Eric Ellison
BOE adds early voting sites, but not WSSU
BY TODD LUCK
THE CHRONICLE
The Forsyth County Board of
Elections added two sites aimed at minor
ity voters, but still didn't include Winston
Salem State University in its new early
voting plan at the meeting held on
Thursday,
CAMPAIGN Au^'boe
passed an
1^/7 * ^ | early voting
month,
county
boards of election across the state are hav
ing to revisit their plans after a federal
appeals court overturned North Carolina's
voter ID law. The omnibus voting law,
which the court ruled was discriminatory,
had numerous other provisions, including
shortening early voting from 17 to 10
days, which were also overturned.
While the BOE did keep the 15 sites in
its plan, the board did add sites, with board
members Fleming El-Amin and Stuart
Russell haggling over how many to add.
El-Amin, the board's sole Democrat, held
firm on adding two sites: St. Paul United
Methodist Church and Sprague Street
Community Center. Stuart originally just
wanted to add Sprague Street. Both sites,
which are accessible to the largely minori
ty communities near them, were added to
the new compromise plan that passed
unanimously.
"1 think we're sort of thumbing our
nose up at this Fourth Circuit Court of
Appeals decision if we don't put some
thing in East Winston," said El-Amin,
referring to St. Paul, which the standing
room only crowd applauded.
The new plan adds seven days onto
early voting, which will start Oct. 20.
During that time, the BOE office will be
open for earlv voting
from 8:30 a.m.-5
p.m. on weekdays
and 10 a.m.-4:30
p.m. on Saturday,
Oct. 22. On Oct. 27
all 17 sites will be
open during the
hours in the plan
passed last month.
Susan Campbell El-Amin briefly
brought up Sunday
voting, when the popular Souls to the Polls
event was held by black churches. Russell
refused the idea" and El-Amin went with
the compromise they'd worked on. El
Amin said that he believed more voters
.will come out on Saturdays than on a
Sunday and hoped churches would work
to get their congregants to vote regardless.
El-Amin said he voted for the compro
mise plan under the condition that the
board takes up moving the election day
polling place for Precinct 405 from Sims
Community Center to the Anderson Center
atWSSU.
The Anderson Center had a long histo
ry of being an early voting site. It has not
been used for early voting since the
Republicans became a majority on the
board in 2013 and has become a point of
contention. El-Amin voted against the
original early voting plan because it lacked
WSSU and planned to appeal to the State
BOE. The last several meetings' public
comment sessions have been filled with
people of all ages, backgrounds and eth
nicities asking for early voting to return to
the historically black university.
Joshua Canzona, an instructor at Wake
Forest University, told the BOE last week
that removing the site was a mistake.
"We should do everything in our
power to increase the bonds between our
universities and the city," he said. "So to
flagrantly remove one of those bonds was
bad for the school and bad for the city. And
I think we should do the right thing and put
that polling place back where it was."
WSSU was also one of the sites that
former Democratic Party Chair Susan
Campbell asked for.
"Even Guilford County has successful
ly used their colleges for voting locations
and it's time for us to do it," she said, refer
ring to Guilford BOE adding several col
leges to their early voting plan last week.
While most commenters did want an
early voting site at WSSU, Linda Petrou
said she opposed it because of "problems"
there in the past. She also disagreed with
the appeals court ruling, saying voter sup
pression was not occurring.
"Votes were not suppressed two years
ago, there was a larger turnout than there
has ever been," said Petrou.
During the comment session, current
Democratic Chair Eric Ellison said that if
the BOE didn't make changes to make its
plan more equitable, the matter would be
taken to court. While WSSU did not a get
a site, other things voters repedtedly asked
for were included, like more sites in heav
ily populated, minority communities and
more Saturday hours to help working peo
ple vote. Ellison said afterwards he sup
ported the compromise. Ellison said he'd
continue advocating for WSSU as a site in
November.
El-Amin said that making the WSSU
Anderson Center the polling site for its
precinct will solve- issues with the Sims
Center. Construction on U.S. 52 is current
ly making it more difficult for many to get
to Sims. After the meeting, BOE Chair
Ken Raymond said he believed that El
Amin was talking about moving the
precinct for a future election because he
thought that it would be too confusing for
voters to move it now. The BOE is sched
uled to discuss the matter in its next meet
ing.
Along with changes in early voting,
the appeals court ruling also means that
voters will not need to show ID to vote. It
also ensures same day registration and out
of-precinct voting will continue after a
previous injunction on the measures had
expired in June. Pre-registration for 16 and
17 year olds is also back and the BOE is
already receiving forms from teens, which
will make them automatically eligible to
vote when they turn 18. The voter ID case
is being appealed to the Supreme Court,
which could overturn the appeals court
ruling.
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