Early voting starts today in Texas. In Waller County, a primarily rural county about 60 miles outside Houston, the county made the decision to offer only one early voting location: at the County Courthouse in Hempstead, TX, the county seat.And, from the comments:
Prairie View A&M students organized to protest the decision, because they felt it hindered their ability to vote. For background, Prairie View A&M is one of Texas' historically Black universities. It has a very different demographic feel than the rest of the county. There has been a long history of dispute over what the students feel is disenfranchisement. There was a lot of outrage in 2006, when students felt they were unfairly denied the right to vote when their registrations somehow did not get processed.
[...]
So what are the students doing?
1000 students, along with an additional 1000 friends and supporters, are this morning walking the 7.3 miles between Prairie View and Hempstead in order to vote today. According to the piece I saw on the news (there's no video up, so I can't link to it), the students plan to all vote today. There are only 2 machines available at the courthouse for early voting, so they hope to tie them up all day and into the night.
[T]his is not the first time Waller County has tried voter suppression tactics in Waller County specifically targeted to the Prairie View A&M students.
I'm proud that the students at Prairie View A&M continue to speak up and participate in their elections. I'm sad however that Waller County keeps throwing up these roadblocks to voting.
Go, PV A&M! (via digby)
UPDATE: more images!
1 comment:
Let's get a Black president. Let's see how that'll sit with a place like Waller County!
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