Keeping Students Away from the Polls

by Eric Marshall

The New York Times ran a great editorial on its website tonight expressing concern over suppression of student voters and highlighting the National Campaign’s role in stopping suppression in Statesboro, Georgia. 

The editorial opened by stating:

The campaigns of fear and intimidation that once kept black voters from casting ballots didn’t end when Congress passed the Voting Rights Act.

Vote suppression is alive and well - and this time, students are among the main victims. College students, who are legally entitled to vote where they attend school, are sometimes barred or frightened away from doing so by local officials who want to keep a tight grip on political power.

That’s exactly what’s been going on in Statesboro, Georgia, where civil rights lawyers and fair elections advocates recently beat back a blatant attempt to prevent students from Georgia Southern University from voting in local elections.

Local officials were apparently alarmed by a voter registration campaign that had signed up about 2,000 new voters, most of them Georgia Southern students.

A group calling itself Statesboro Citizens for Good Government challenged the eligibility of more than 900 students. According to accounts by the National Campaign for Fair Elections, the students also faced threats and intimidation from police officers stationed both inside and outside polling places.

Click here to read the entire editorial.