<p>I’m proud of these young college students, most of whom are minorities, judging from the photo. Apparently county officials had decided to have just one polling place in the entire county, rather than the usual half dozen.</p>
<p>Interesting how you can vote early in Texas, and not just by mail.</p>
<p>I’m not sure I understand the problem here. If you’re a student and want to vote early, you can mail it in or go to the central place designated. Otherwise, you wait until the regular election day, March 4, and vote on campus:</p>
<p>“On Election Day, students can vote on campus in the University Alumni Association.”</p>
<p>The county I live in (in Ohio) only has one central early voting place–the Board of Elections–where you can vote early in person, or mail your ballot in. </p>
<p>My understanding was that until the federal gov. stepped in very recently, the county had closed a half dozen polling places that had existed in previous elections and was just planning to allow one place (and this in an election year that is attracting record number of voters). The voters there felt that the local government was making it too hard to go vote, both for transportation reasons and wait-time. The march was planned apparently in advance of the decision to add more polling sites. My point in posting it was that I found it inspiring that college students would walk that far and wait up to 5 hours in line just to vote.</p>
<p>(In CA we can’t vote in person early, but can mail the ballot in. We have dozens of polling places in our city, practically every school it seems like).</p>
<p>I got your point, loud and clear!! In the 2004 election, when my D was a freshman at an Ohio college, she and others stood in line in the rain for 5 hours to vote. They knew it would be a crucial swing state, and cared maximally.</p>
<p>I was so proud of her I posted this as a news-bit in a local bulletin where everyone was boasting of their child’s deans lists and so on, “(Name) waited in a five hour line in Ohio, along with her classmates, to vote in the recent presidential election.” It stood out oddly on that list of praiseworthy achievements, but many people commented upon it later. They got it, too (or thought I was nuts, whatever).</p>
<p>It is very inspiring. I have had conversations with all 3 of my kids about how people die for this right, and every time they exercise it, they are the secret twin of someone who cannot vote freely. I guess I pump them up about it, but they’ve internalized its meaning.</p>
<p>In some communities, the local towns find ways to disenfranchise college students fearing a takeover of local positions, so the students have to be very watchful of their ability to vote in national elections. College students have no longterm stake in local elected posts, but they certainly do in national affairs.</p>
<p>At my D’s college, this 5-hour wait situation became a court case afterwards. The college also changed its approach to registering new students to ensure it wouldn’t reoccur for the next midterm elections.</p>
<p>I did find out a little bit more about the Texas primary. It is an incredibly complicated, proportioned, 2-tier system. About 2/3 of the delegates are chosen by the March 4 vote, and the other 1/3 by caucuses that night. Almost a “superdelegate” system within a system.</p>