Voting on Super Tuesday 2020

Texas Southern University became a voting Precinct in the last November elections. This Super Tuesday was the second time the university opened its doors for voters. This time hundreds stood in line to cast their vote at the Robert J. Terry Library. But there was an evident problem that voters could not ignore. The voting location lacked voting machines and it was causing a serious pile up of people, having voters wait at least two hours to cast their vote.

Janice Blue was one of the affected voters. She did not plan on voting at TSU this year but her regular polling location where she had voted for the last 50 years, since 1970, closed unexpectedly. She did not have a car so getting to the polls was a difficult journey that required a lot of determination from her part.

“I took the bus to St. Mary’s thinking I could vote there when it was closed I had to walk from there to Texas Southern which was another 20, 30 minute walk or something and now its two hours in line so you have to be very dedicated to vote and people left because you know they had to pick up their kids from school so it's very upsetting,” she said.

Not everyone that planned on voting on Super Tuesday anticipated the time it would take or had the time to stay and cast their vote. Many voters turned away from the intimidating long lines.

Nnenna Ezeji a Thurgood Marshall School of Law student, showed up to the library ready to cast her vote but did not have the time to wait in line.

“I will try another polling location probably around my apartment to see if there are other shorter lines to do it. If the wait is like 30 minutes, ok fine, but anything more than that I’m probably not gonna vote,” she said.

But it wasn’t all bad news, the line was full of people willing to encourage one another to wait and cast their vote for who they truly believe in. Rodney Ellis, a proud TSU alum, running for county commissioner, was one of the people who showed up on campus to greet voters and encourage them to wait in the lines. He took the time to meet voters, listen to their concerns and of course convince them to vote for him.

Before Super Tuesday and any election, Harris County advises voters to visit their website and review their sample ballot so they could become familiar with the candidates on the ballot and avoid taking long when casting their votes.

Super Tuesday was only a preview of the expected voter turnout of the upcoming 2020 elections. The election has given voters and the county a chance to prepare for the next election. Harris County took notice of the problem and will work to resolve the problem before the upcoming 2020 elections.