How a ‘Failsafe’ Protection for Voting Fails Students

A new Duke report, published in the Rutgers University Law Review, explains that Heather’s story was far from unique and details how election policy and practices disenfranchise young voters in numbers large enough to possibly sway key elections. The article was written by students in the Elections in a Pandemic class led by Gunther Peck, associate professor of history and public policy.

Drawing from Durham County election data over three election cycles, the report concludes that youth voters are disproportionately forced to cast provisional ballots, and their provisional ballots are more likely to be rejected by election officials than those cast by other age groups.

Furthermore, the report concluded that Black youth voters are more likely to cast provisional ballots than white voters, making their votes more vulnerable.

In all, in 2020, 7,744 provisional North Carolina ballots casted by youths were rejected. These cancelled votes may have changed political history of the state. The authors note that in a crucial statewide race for state Supreme Court Chief Justice, incumbent Cheri Beasley, who drew strong youth support, lost to her Republican opponent by 401 votes, helping to later swing the court majority to the Republicans.

The data starkly points to different outcomes for young and minority voters. In 2020, across North Carolina, 10,577 people aged 18-25 cast provisional ballots, a rate significantly greater than for any other age group and nearly 100 times greater than for senior citizens.

Meanwhile, only 20% of provisional ballots for voters aged 18-25 ended up being successfully counted, a significantly lower percentage than for all other age groups.

These reflect a similar disparity the students also found in state elections in 2008, 2012 and 2016.

The primary reason student registrations and provisional votes are denied is if students register with only their dorm address where they don’t receive mail. A mailing address is required to validate the registration. It’s a simple fix, but the system doesn’t provide for informing the student to correct it.

The authors say the discrimination in voting is not “because of a deliberate effort against Black or young voters but rather because of voter registration and election administration policies that consistently hurt transient college students. … Those flaws in voter registration and election administration have exacerbated the disadvantages that college students confront when exercising their constitutionally protected right to vote.”

“It is impossible to distinguish between racially motivated voter suppression and a system not designed to support a highly mobile, young population,” said Kathryn Thomas, one of the student authors. “When democratic infrastructure is not designed with mobile and young populations in mind, that is a clear example of voter suppression on the basis of both race and age.

“North Carolina — and this entire nation — have a long history of racially-motivated voter suppression, and those effects are only exacerbated when a voter faces other challenges, such as frequently changing addresses or unclear information from their university administration.”

In their research, the students went beyond the data to interview several young voters such as Heather to learn more about their experience and how it affected them.

“We chose to include individual stories as a way to highlight the real experiences of student voters and understand how their voting experiences have impacted their attitudes and mindsets toward voting,” said Ameya Rao, another of the Duke student authors. “These qualitative observations cannot be found in the data – it’s important to humanize the issue and bring attention the fact that real people are being impacted by seemingly logistical or technical policy decisions.”

“The good news is that college administrators, local administration officials and students themselves have the power to inform first time voters how to avoid casting a provisional ballot in upcoming elections.  New ID regulations restrict access to voting, but can also create an opportunity for better education about how students can protect and even expand their voting rights.”

Gunther Peck

The students talked with an Elon student they called Ben, a Durham resident who had pre-registered while in high school, a process that encourages young students to get engaged in voting before they are eligible. When he came to vote in 2020, he was given a provisional ballot that was later rejected because a clerical error prevented election officials from finding his registration.

To compound the problem, Ben was never told that he had cast a provisional ballot and only learned that it had been rejected when the Duke students in the project told him. Such obstacles, the authors write, “teach young voters to view the process as arbitrary and capricious, enforcing distrust in the fairness of the election system.”

His story also points how the electoral system isn’t designed to assist inexperienced voters. “It was my first-time voting,” Ben told the researchers. “None of my family has ever voted. I didn’t really know what to do.”

Yet, while their research points out problems with the provisional ballot system, the authors underline that the system provides an important failsafe mechanism that helps many voters successfully cast ballots. Thomas referred to the provisional system as “a canary in the mine.”

“When we see high levels of provisional ballots being cast (as we do here in North Carolina), it is likely indicative of some larger problem or challenge within our election administration,” she said.

In the article, the authors offer several recommendations to improve the system:

• Strengthen transparency in provisional voting so that voters know when they cast one and the reason for their rejection.
• Universities should ensure that all students are aware of address requirements for registration and have access to fix registration problems.
• Universities should also collaborate with state and county election boards on student voter IDs and
• State elections officials should adopt policies to ensure voter eligibility is not dependent on providing a valid mailing address and that early voting sites should not also serve as an Election Day site.

Some of the change will fall to the election officials, who students note often worked hard to help the students even when they failed to find a path to a valid ballot.

Thomas who worked this summer as an intern with an election protection group, said she had an opportunity to learn much about the challenges election workers face.

The primary reason student registrations and provisional votes are denied is if students register with only their dorm address where they don’t receive mail. A mailing address is required to validate the registration. It’s a simple fix, but the system doesn’t provide for informing the student to correct it.

“My understanding after talking with many folks in these roles is that they simply do have the time or resources to launch a student-oriented informational campaign or help every individual voter when they walk in the polling place. Maybe this is where colleges and universities can collaborate with local election offices to take some of the financial burden off the local officials,” Thomas said.

To that end, Duke officials worked closely with state elections officials to get approval for a Duke student voter ID card, which meets new state requirements as a valid form for voting in North Carolina in 2023 and 2024. Not all universities were able to get such approval, and there are concerns that the new ID regulations could pose another barrier to student voters across the state.

“Provisional ballots, meant to be a failsafe, too often have become a barrier to students having their ballots counted, with no education about what went wrong or how to fix the problem,” Peck said.

“The good news is that college administrators, local administration officials and students themselves have the power to inform first time voters how to avoid casting a provisional ballot in upcoming elections.  New ID regulations restrict access to voting, but can also create an opportunity for better education about how students can protect and even expand their voting rights.”