Republican effort to suppress votes in North Carolina college BACKFIRES

Brian Tyler Cohen (0:01)

Republicans pull a last-minute stunt to suppress the vote in North Carolina, and it backfires. And I've got two interviews, Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton, and independent candidate for Senate in South Dakota, Brian Bengs. I'm Brian Tyler Cohen, and you're listening to No Lie.

So there was a viral video that swept across the internet this week, where students from North Carolina A&T, which is an HBCU in Greensboro, were walking back to the campus by the hundreds after casting their ballots on the first day of early voting in North Carolina. And the reason that there was a video of students marching in the streets is because Republicans on the local and state election boards decided that those students didn't get a polling place on their own campus anymore. So here's what happened. A&T and UNC Greensboro both had early voting sites on their campus in 2024 For this year's midterm though, the Guilford County Board of Elections, which has a Republican majority, approved an early voting plan with no sites on either campus. The Republican-controlled State Board of Elections voted 3-2 along party lines back in January to deny the college a site and then denied the campus again in August. Students spent months fighting this decision. They packed state board meetings in Raleigh. They protested. And yet despite all of that, they were ignored.

And so in spite of the effort by these Republicans to make it more difficult for these students to cast their ballots, instead hundreds of A&T, UNCG and Bennett College students marched for about 45 minutes in 85 degree heat to the nearest early voting site at Union Square and then came 45 minutes back. It was reported that more than 300 votes were cast at that site that day. And one organizer said that some students waited three hours to vote. And I know on one hand, it's great that all of these people weathered these conditions to make sure they can cast their ballots. But how bleak is what the Republicans are doing? Creating three-hour waits for the right to vote, all on purpose, by the people who run the election.

Now interestingly, when state board members were asked to explain their decision, they cited a bunch of excuses. They talked about proximity to the polls. They talked about parking. They talked about administrative concerns. One member at the January meeting asked in effect whether people could just park on campus without a pass. We're looking for any excuse to be able to justify not having voting site on this campus. But here's the problem with that explanation. When this came up for Western Carolina University, that's another campus site on the chopping block, a county board member told the state board that closing it wouldn't save any money and would quote, create barriers to voting for young rural residents. That's what this is. This isn't a budget fight. It's not a parking problem. It's about making sure that likely Democratic voters would have a tougher time and that likely Republican voters wouldn't. And let's be clear. This is a pattern, not an accident. Last month, we talked about Tarrant County, Texas, where Republican commissioners voted 3 to 2 to shut down 92 polling places ahead of the midterms. Same playbook, different state. Make the polling place harder to reach and just hope enough people give up. Why? Because Republicans can't win on the merits. And so instead, they are just preventing people from casting their ballots outright.

But here's the tragic irony as far as Republicans are concerned. Their efforts to suppress the vote are backfiring, because on the first day of early voting in North Carolina, more than 201,000 people voted in person. Back in 2022, that number was about 137,000. So this is a 47% jump from the last midterm cycle. Registered Democrats outvoted registered Republicans by nearly 28 points. This day in 2024, the Democrats had a two point advantage. So a massive 26 point swing to the left. Registered Republican turnout was actually down from 2022

And 94 of the state's 100 counties saw higher first day turnout than four years ago.

Now, it's worth noting that the march wasn't solely responsible for these huge numbers, considering early voting was up everywhere. But here's what the numbers do tell you. The students who were supposed to give up and stay home didn't. They walked, they made their way to the polls, and they voted. And that's the story here. A county board in Greensboro looked at a campus full of young voters, mostly black, and decided to make voting harder for them. Surprise, surprise. And those students answered by showing up in even greater numbers, on foot, in the heat, to a site an hour away.