Burnt Orange Report

Daily Texan Stuff

By Byron LaMasters

Two good articles today in the Daily Texan. One on early voting for the Amendment election and another on affirmative action.

First, on the fact that the UGL (undergraduate library) was only an early vote location for one day (yesterday) of early voting as opposed to a location for the entire week and one half of early voting, as is typical. It saddened me because early voting on campus at UT encourages students to vote. Most students don't know where their precinct is, or where to vote on election day, but most students do know that if you're registered to vote in Travis County, you can vote early at the UGL... except for this election. The Daily Texan reports:

Linda Wandt was walking along the West Mall Tuesday afternoon when she saw the "Vote Here" sign and took the opportunity to cast a ballot during early voting at the UGL.

"I'm busy, and unfortunately, I probably wouldn't have gone out of my way to find out where the voting was," Wandt, English sophomore, said. "I'm really glad that this place was open."

But this year, Tuesday was students' only opportunity to cast an early vote at the UGL. Travis County Elections Division eliminated the library as an early voting site due to budget cuts, and instead, a mobile voting station was available for one day only.

Three hundred and forty people utilized the mobile station Tuesday. In the 2001 special election, about 700 people cast early ballots at the UGL over 12 days.

This year, a mobile voting unit will be set up in the UGL on Thursday from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. The general election will take place this Saturday, Sept. 13.

Some students are disappointed that the UT location didn't survive the cut because they said the location offers convenience.

"We wished it had remained an early voting site because it's the easiest place for University students [to vote]," said Haley Greer, University Democrats president and government senior.

The special election is on 22 proposed amendments that came out of the 78th legislative session.

Kim Dilling, site manager for Travis County Elections, said the decision was primarily an economic one. All departments are strapped with budget issues forcing them to make cuts, she said.

"This is a smaller election, and typically many students are registered in their hometown," Dilling said. "This is not a permanent cut. This is just for this election."

County Clerk Dana De-Beauvoir said that the UT site was the most logical place to temporarily cut.

"The turnout in constitutional amendment elections tends to be low with less than 5 percent turning out," DeBeauvoir said. "Also, students typically re-spond to a candidate more than a text ballot."

Student Government legislative relations director Dan Paschal said he called the county clerk's office, because he was concerned by the decision to eliminate early voting at the UGL.

"We were told that the UT voting site is a low-turnout site," said Paschal, a government sophomore. "I find that disappointing, because how are you supposed to encourage voter turnout if you don't have a place to vote?"

Bill Medaille, a researcher for Texans for Public Justice and former UT student, called the decision to eliminate the UT site a "massive mistake."

"Students have every right to be a part of the election process, and this makes it more difficult for them," Medaille said. "It's hard to imagine a single better location for early voting given the population. Cutting it as a budget matter seems remarkably short-sighted."

DeBeauvoir maintains that this was not a decision against UT voters and encourages them to vote in the general election this weekend.

"I'm certainly thrilled students want to come out and vote," DeBeauvoir said.

I'm a little upset with DeBeauvoir. I'm happy with her work overall, but her quote on students is disappointing. Students typically respond more to candidates than a text ballot, but heck, everyone does. So, why make it more difficult for students to vote as opposed to another group of people that respond less to text ballots. Fine, there's low turnouts constitutional amendment elections, but part of the reason why, is that there is less of an opportunity to vote. Duh.

There's also some trouble with implimenting a new admissions policy at UT including some form of affirmative action. Apparently, UT won't be able to change it's policy until Fall 2005 instead of Fall 2004.

Posted by Byron LaMasters at September 10, 2003 04:06 PM | TrackBack