Absentee voting problems force some students to drive for hours

As of Monday, Genevieve Carpenter, a freshman from suburban Kansas City, Mo., attending the University of Arkansas, still had not received her ballot for Tuesday’s general election. So her father, Shannon, took action.

“She filled out the paperwork (to request a ballot), she had it notarized and she sent it in. Friends around her got theirs, but hers never showed up,” he said in conversation with Within Higher Ed by telephone Tuesday afternoon. “So, instead of worrying about it, we waited until yesterday, and I was like, ‘Fuck it.’ I’ll just come get you. ”

Shannon got into his car, drove three and a half hours to Fayetteville to pick up Genevieve, took her back to the polls in Missouri to vote in person, and then drove her back to campus — all on Election Day. He initially wanted to leave for Fayetteville on Monday, but tornadoes in the region disrupted his plan.

By the time he got his daughter back to her dorm, it was midnight; he had been in the car for a total of about twelve hours. He decided to stay in a hotel before heading home the next morning.

Genevieve Carpenter isn’t the only registered voter who requested but did not receive a ballot this election; On Monday and Tuesday, confused voters in several states reported problems with absentee voting throughout the day. Some never received the ballots they requested or received late. (Some states require mail-in ballots to arrive before polls close so they can be counted.) Others submitted their ballots, only to find that they rejected or never arrived.

Theresa J. Lee, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, is currently representing voters in Cobb County, Georgia.whose absentee ballots were never issued due to a county error. But she said there is no reason to believe anecdotes from elsewhere in the country are connected to Cobb County’s problems or otherwise part of a systemic issue.

“In general, there have always been non-malicious problems with election administration,” she said.

Absentee voting issues can have a particularly significant impact on students. About a third of students responded An Within Higher Ed/Generation Lab flash poll held in late September, said they planned to vote absentee or by mail. That share is even higher (45 percent) among students who go to study in a voting district other than their permanent address.

Shannon Carpenter said he was willing to drive hours to help his daughter vote because he strongly believes that people should exercise their right to vote — something he has instilled in his children by taking them to the polls every election since birth. to take.

He acknowledged that the journey was not only time-consuming and tiring, but also costly; he spent money on gas and the hotel where he stayed Tuesday night, as well as on meals.

“There are real financial costs associated with this that I understand that many people, many students, cannot afford. That’s concerning for something that should be free and easy to do,” he said.

But he was also grateful to spend time with his daughter and son, who joined him on the road trip. The siblings, who hadn’t seen each other in a while, spent the long car ride catching up and discussing silly mortgages, like what their last meal on earth would be.

“It’s a pleasure to listen to,” he said. “They are a family, and I did that, and I’m proud of what I did.”

Elsewhere in the country, students reported long drives — and in some cases flights — to their home states to cast their ballots. Several news sources reported that Lexi Harder, a graduate student in Germany from Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, flew 15 hours to vote after her ballot was unexpectedly returned to her.

“It’s absolutely priceless. I would have paid triple to come back,’ Harder told 6 ABC.

Others opted to vote in person where they attended college once it became clear their ballots wouldn’t arrive, using a provisional ballot or same-day registration to make a last-minute switch. Mya Tolbert, a student and first-time voter at Towson University, shared Within Higher Ed on Election Day, she decided to vote in person at the polling place on the college campus when her absentee ballot did not arrive in the mail. Luckily she had a break between classes so she could wait in line for over an hour.