Cole Riley just started a petition to Chairman Jim Kimel, Jr. & Director Charlie Collicutt, Guilford County Board of Elections to:

#LetAggiesVote: Stop Erasing Aggie Voices

Dear John,

I just started a petition titled "Let Aggies Vote!"

In 2016, North Carolina’s voting practices came under heavy scrutiny after the NAACP threatened to sue the state for engaging in practices that its attorney described as tantamount to voter suppression. The drastic reduction in the number of early voting booths throughout Guilford County - from 16 in 2012 to just one in 2016 - compounds the challenges residents face when trying to make it to the polls. The primaries are taking place during NC A&T’s Spring Break and the nearest early voting location for students is at least a mile away from campus. This will undoubtedly mean that fewer students and countless members of our community will be locked out of the democratic process. This is avoidable. Guilford County Board of Elections has a responsibility to designate an early voting site on campus next year.

Protect our community’s ability to vote by signing here to let the Guilford County Board of Elections know that Aggies need an early voting location on campus for the 2020 primaries.

On February 1st 1960, despite the segregationist Jim Crow laws that made it illegal, four brave young Aggies fought to have a seat at a lunch counter to ensure that the voices and concerns of their community would be heard. These sit-ins were strategic actions designed and carried out to demand justice and accountability.  Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, David Richmond, and Ezell Blair sat at the table so that our community wouldn't end up on the menu. As 2020 approaches the attacks on our people and our community continue to escalate during these divisive times.  What was true in 1960 remains true today---we must demand to be served. Guilford County Board of Elections must avoid reinforcing voter suppression tactics and give the students at NC A&T a fair chance to be heard by establishing an early voting location on campus for the March 2020 primary election.

Democracy works best when everyone has a voice and can speak on issues that affect their everyday lives equally.  The Board of Elections placed an early voting site on campus in 2012 and removed it in 2016. This is in spite of the fact that civic engagement on campus is growing; from 2014 to 2018, A&T voter turnout increased by 51% in the midterms and could continue to grow if it weren’t for continued efforts to suppress young, Black voters. By ensuring we have an early voting precinct on campus, Guilford County Board of Elections has the opportunity to make voting easy and accessible for NC A&T’s students who've historically faced barriers to participating in county elections.  

Will you sign the petition and forward this email to make sure your voice is heard? Add your name here.

North Carolina A&T State University has been the subject of controversial partisan gerrymandering in recent years. Shifting voter ID laws and the loss of our early voting location in 2016 have made it increasingly difficult for our school’s 12,500 students, the majority of them Black, to vote. Being disenfranchised, silenced, and ostracized is not a new phenomenon for our majority minority students. However, simply because it has become the norm, does not mean we will allow this disenfranchisement to continue any longer. That is why we are demanding an early voting location be reinstated on campus. Given Guilford County Board of Elections’ stated commitment to “maximizing voter registration and voter turnout efforts,” establishing an early voting polling location on A&T’s campus would uphold the Board’s civic responsibility, values, and purpose. Sign now to tell the Board to do the right thing. Let’s make sure Aggies have the ability to vote early come March 2020.

We won’t allow our voices to be silenced. Sign now to demand an early voting booth gets put on NC A&T’s campus in time for the primaries in March 2020.

Thank you,

Cole Riley