Outrage

Last night on the Civil Rights Movement veterans list-serve, this came in from the President of the Virginia State University Branch of the NAACP. If you've paid any attention, you know this was not a unique occurrence.

Virginia State University NAACP
1 Hayden Dr.
Petersburg VA, 23806

To Whom It May Concern:

On November 2, 2004, there were over 100 students who complained to the Virginia State University Branch of the NAACP about being turned away when voting at Ettrick Elementary. I (Shaunt’e Reese President of this branch) returned to the voting site with 10 of the complaining students and met about 8 more who were there to see what the reasons were from keeping the students from voting. Apparently during validation, which was the 2nd week of August, the Student Government Association were registering students to vote and providing absentee ballots. However, the students never received their voter’s card nor their absentee ballots so when it was time to vote they were unable to and they were not in the system as being registered at all. I asked one of the gentleman who was working the polls about the provisional ballot and he told me that they can do one but then he also stated “ I am going to tell you straight up and I’m not going to sugar it up but the provisional ballot is not going to mean anything because it won’t count because they are using it to shut the students up”. Immediately I was outraged, disgusted and felt extremely deprived of my right to vote. I called 1877-OUR-VOTE and told them the situation and they took the complaint and said that they would get back to me. I am hoping that something like this can be dealt with because I would not want to see this happen in the next 4 years to come.