INSTITUTE INDEX: Will the NC GOP's attack on student voting backfire?

North Carolina Republicans are taking steps to make it more difficult for college students to vote and run for office -- but students are not taking the attacks on their rights sitting down. (Photo by Sue Sturgis.)

Date on which North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) signed into law a Republican-backed bill that imposes some of the nation's most restrictive voting rules, including a ban on the use of student IDs for voting and eliminating a program that encourages high school students to register to vote before their 18th birthdays: 8/12/2013

Since then, number of Republican-controlled county boards of elections in the state that have moved to limit students' ability to vote or run for office: 3

Date the Republican-controlled board of elections in Watauga County, in the mountains of western North Carolina, voted to eliminate an early voting site and election-day polling precinct on the campus of Appalachian State University, a Democratic-leaning enclave in a Republican-leaning area: 8/12/2013

As a result of that decision, number of residents of Boone, N.C. who will now have to cast their ballots at one county building: more than 9,300

Number of parking spaces that building has: about 35

Miles aways from ASU's campus that building is located, along a road with no sidewalk, a 45 m.p.h. speed limit, and no direct bus service: 1

Money the change would save, a fact that was erased from the minutes of the board's meeting: $0

Date the Republican-controlled board of elections in Pasquotank County, on the North Carolina coast, voted to bar Montravias King, a senior at historically black Elizabeth City State University, from running for city council, ruling that his on-campus address can't be used to establish local residency: 8/13/2013

Date on which the Southern Coalition for Social Justice filed an appeal in the King case, arguing that the election board's decision unconstitutionally treats college students differently from other voters: 8/20/2013

Year in which the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case pertaining to a historically black university in Texas, ruled that it's unconstitutional to deny residency rights to college students: 1979

Number of ECSU students purged from Pasquotank County voting rolls earlier this year as a result of an effort by county GOP chair Pete Gilbert, who claimed they were not properly registered to vote at their campus address: 56

Total number of efforts by local Republicans to purge ECSU students from voting rolls in recent years: 3

Number of similar efforts undertaken by Republicans to restrict voting at Mid-Atlantic Christian University, a largely white school that's also located in Pasquotank County: 0

Date on which the chair of the Republican-controlled board of elections in Forsyth County, in North Carolina's Piedmont region, said he planned to take a vote to eliminate an early voting site at historically black Winston-Salem State University, a decision he later backed away from, calling it "premature": 8/20/2013

Number of early voting sites that were located on the campuses of North Carolina colleges during the 2012 election: at least 16

Percent of those sites that former state Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, an Orange County Democrat who resigned her seat this week to begin working with a project to counter voting restrictions, believes the North Carolina Republican Party will try to shut down: 100

Date on which students returned to school at North Carolina's Campbell University, a largely white Baptist school headquartered in Harnett County, to find that voting had become easier for them as a polling place had been moved on campus, to a building named for the father of Republican mega-donor and state budget director Art Pope: 8/21/2013

The weekend after the news broke about the Pasquotank County election board's actions against Montravias King, number of new voters that Appalachian State students registered, leading the Campbell University student who leads the state's College Democrats to warn that state lawmakers "may have awakened a sleeping giant": 500

(Click on figure to go to source.)