Super Tuesday Fiasco: Minority College Students And Trouble At The Polls ?

HOUSTON- Super Tuesday has just passed at the wonderful campus of Texas Southern University. For many students, this was either their first time voting or returning to the polls. However, many students had different experiences at the poll.

With young adults in college, many students like Brenna Armstrong, aren’t from Houston and had to mail in their ballots. This was very stressful for her, especially when she found out that there was a specific due date she had to turn it in by. “There’s a due date you have to send it to your county.” Even though Brenna isn’t from this county, she still understood the importance of voting and why it was important for her voice to be heard. “I used to live in a smaller town sophomore- freshman year. It affected me how they were really anti about students voting. I didn’t know what the culture was with voting TSU… I vote at every primary election. So I made the effort to mail my ballot in.” With Armstrong not being from this city, she faced many challenges with getting her ballot even mailed here.

“What I do know is that I had to jump through a couple hoops to get my mail-in ballot.” Brenna Armstrong said as she talked about her experience of voting by mail. “I believe that if you are registered to vote but moved, it is quote on quote, “convenient” to send a ballot in. It’s not convenient in the fact that you have to go send in paperwork to request your ballot in… it's convenient to an extent.” While Brenna’s experience wasn’t ideal, she was still able to send her vote in. However, she believes that she should still be able to vote in whatever county that she is in. While this was her experience, many students and faculty that commute to campus also had their experiences with voting.

“I was in line from 3 to 5:30 pm just to vote… Others were in a line wrapped around the tiger walk till 8 o’clock last night… They had to emergency bring in 14 other voting booths.” Professor Jordan Scruggs explained her experience waiting in line to vote at the Robert R. Terry library on campus. Students like Isaiah Robinson didn’t even get the opportunity to vote. “I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to vote. I did understand that there was a low voter turnout, so not everything was expected at the TSU site. I did try to go to a proctor sight by my house, but they were closed as well. I wouldn’t say it was a waste of time, but I did feel disappointed.” Students like Isaiah understood the meaning of why it was important to vote, but still, he wishes more locations were available for his fellow students.

Overall, students had mixed feelings about voting but were still excited to be a part of history. It will be interesting to see how Texas Southern will organize November election day in the following months. Hopefully, the experience will be just as, if not more rewarding for students as the media and campaign start to squeeze in on the main opponents. *