Virginia Tech Students Sent To Vote At Remote Location

There are reports of voting problems all across the Commonwealth of Virginia this morning. Here's the New Republic's "The Plank" on what's been reported thus far:

The vigilant folks here at Election Protection headquarters are telling us that large numbers of Virginia voters have been turned away from the polls this morning. Several precincts opened late and quickly had ballot shortages. At some, not all the machines were working; at others, none of them were working. The group's legal volunteers are learning more by the minute as calls come in from voters--so take this all with a grain of salt for now--but word here is that more than a dozen precincts have been experiencing serious problems in the Commonwealth. The number of voters affected, according to a group spokesman, is "significant."

More than a thousand frustrated Virginians have called to complain this morning. One widely reported blunder: Workers at some of the state's malfunctioning precincts have been giving cleanly registered voters provisional ballots instead of paper ballots, most likely because they ran out of the paper ones. (Provisional ballots are meant for voters whose eligibility has been called into question.) "Over the last hour, we're continuing to get these problems in Virginia," says Jon Greenbaum, the coalition's legal director. And then there's this, from a Rock the Vote rep: The polling precinct for Virginia Tech students in Blacksburg was moved to a church that sits on an unmarked road six miles off campus. Better carpool, Hokies.

That news out of Blacksburg really sticks in the craw. Here's the specific details:

More than 5,600 people, mainly Virginia Tech students, are registered to vote at precinct E1 in Blacksburg, Virginia (Montgomery County). That number is nearly double what the state law allows for polling stations and the lack of an additional polling station is causing substantial delays. In addition, the polling place is 6.5 miles away from campus at a tiny church located off the main road. There is no street sign marking the turn off to the one lane road. There are 30 parking spots for the thousands of voters expected to turn up at precinct E1.

We tracked down the exact address of this polling place, thanks to the Collegiate Times: St. Michael's Lutheran Church, 2308 Merrimac Road. Here's where Google Maps approximates this location:

Students are organizing to get each other to the polls. Collegiate Times says voters, "are encouraged to park at Kipps Elementary School and take a shuttle to the polling place to avoid parking problems...Montgomery County Public School Bus # 124 will run continuous shuttles from Kipps, 2801 Prices Fork Road, to St. Michael's from 12:30 p.m. until the polls close at 7 p.m."

Stay strong, Hokies.

Comments

[grf67]

05:20 AM on 11/05/2008

Why do we continue to think that making it difficult fo citizens to vote is laudable? Small people with very small and hateful minds.

[NobodysPoodle]

12:55 AM on 11/05/2008

We did it. Virginia is blue!

[OgreDaddy]

01:04 AM on 11/05/2008

Yup, Virginia putting the BLUE back in The Blue Ridge

[sbirnbaum]

11:17 PM on 11/04/2008

I live in Blacksburg­; my husband is a faculty member at Virginia Tech.
It is true that the polling locations were inconvenie­nt for students, particular­ly St. Michael's Church. (When I was a student in California­, our polling stations were in the dorms. Why couldn't Tech do something like that?)

However, the Obama headquarte­rs in Blacksburg provided a shuttle service that transporte­d kids from campus to St. Michael's every 15 minutes. Virginia Tech wouldn't let the Democratic Headquarte­rs advertise this service on campus since it was deemed partisan but most students were aware of their transporta­tion options, thanks to the campaign's impressive networking­.

Blacksburg Public Transporta­tion also provided bus service, though it was more sporadic and less convenient than the shuttles driven by Democratic campaign volunteers­.

I'm not sure if the Republican campaign organized something similar.

[OgreDaddy]

11:04 PM on 11/04/2008

I am so glad I told my daughter to get her in person absentee vote done early.

After what our kids have gone through at Va Tech, this attempt to suppress their student
vote may backfire on a massive scale.

[IndyReader]

08:46 PM on 11/04/2008

I think the Repubs still aren't getting how technology is defeating their nefarious plots. Eight years ago this would've worked perfectly.

[EuroRant1]

07:41 PM on 11/04/2008

Thieves, liars, cheats, perverts, crooks, ... oh I could go on but I'll control myself and call them what they are best known by ... CHRISTIANS­.

[khaleef49]

05:48 PM on 11/04/2008

With all the strange thing going on this election, I am beginning to wonder whether previous elections have been honest. It is time to change the way the president is elected. Let the people decide.

[OgreDaddy]

11:10 PM on 11/04/2008

The Republican­s lost the last TWO presidenti­al elections, but used vote manipulati­on
to turn the tables in their favor without a paper trail.

You have to remember that certain State officials are pulling plenty of stunts to keep themselves
in power.

[karela]

05:20 PM on 11/04/2008

They tried again, but it's so outrageous and young people are so determined that I don't think it will work for them this time. Power to the young people who defy voter suppressio­n! I wish I lived closer! I'd be baking cookies all day long. We owe a deep debt of gratitude to the young people in America who have done so much throughout this election.

[dcjdjay]

05:09 PM on 11/04/2008

The Republican­s, once again, are trying to steal this election.

They are shameless to the bone.

[chinacatsunflower]

04:49 PM on 11/04/2008

If schools all across the commonweal­th are designated polling places, then why can't these kids just vote on campus???

[walkman666]

04:44 PM on 11/04/2008

Collegiate Times (Va Tech's newspaper) is reporting that rock the vote is helping get students over to the church, and that there's very little wait to vote at the secondary voting station. Hard to tell how many, if any, voters gave up on voting to make the shlep, but I went to Va Tech and lived near where they are talking about and 6.5 miles there is like a 10-minute drive...as long as the students care, they should get there.
http://col­legiatetim­es.com/blo­gs/electio­n/

[grf67]

04:37 PM on 11/04/2008

Are the republican­s still running Virginia. There was some hope that democratic senators and a democratic governor would have solve this. It's time for Gov Kaine to flush his government of these folks.

[LCRover001]

04:24 PM on 11/04/2008

Wonder if these problems are only happening in Democrat leaning percents?

Also wonder if the votes made by students at this remote locations votes will be contested because they didn’t vote at their registered polling place?

We are supposed to be an example of democracy for the rest of the world and look how we are behaving. Well not we the Republican Party you know the ones who want to spread democracy all over the world if they want it or not, I think I know exactly what they are spreading.

[PT6]

04:23 PM on 11/04/2008

We call ourselves the "GREATEST DEMOCRACY IN THE WORLD" then why:

1. Corruption in Military Contracts
2. Corruption on Wall Street
3. Corruption in Mortgage Lending
4. Corruption in Healthcare Costs
5. Corruption in "Staging a Fake" War

and Corruption in OUR DEMOCRATIC VOTING SYSTEM!

[bliss0027]

10:04 PM on 11/04/2008

this is what the rest of the world has thought for a long while

[Rog49Thomas]

07:02 AM on 11/05/2008

It's all in the definition­s of "greatest" and "democracy­".

Brother Stalin called the USSR the greatest democracy in his day.

[611Juniper]

04:18 PM on 11/04/2008

Where was the local Democratic Party on this and other polling place problems across the US.

In most states, polling locations have to be set by 60 days before the election. The Democratic Party should be on top of polling place locations in all jurisdicti­ons - plus it should be monitoring the allocation of voting equipment.

Before the next election folks - please bombard your state legislator­s and local election officials to insist that adequate funds be allocated to the elections function so that sufficient equipment is available. Those funds are necessary so that election offices have sufficient numbers of staff with sufficient training to run elections fairly, effectivel­y, and efficientl­y. Also insist on changes in laws that allow widespread Early Voting, better protection­s for student voters, and tracking of absentee ballot requests.

We have these problems because we've grossly underfunde­d elections for decades and we've expected an army of poorly trained volunteers to do most of the work on Election Day! You wouldn't run a fast food restaurant with a bunch of people who had an hour of training. Why are we running elections this way?