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NCCU Year
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By Rainah Simmons, Maria Beaudoin, 
and Robert B. Herring, III
Echo Staff Writers

Florida residents that are fighting to have their votes counted are not alone. Some N.C. Central University students share similar concerns following an unexpected turn of events on Election Day.

Sophomore Frederick A. Kearns was stunned when he tried to vote on campus but was sent to the Weaver St. voting precinct — the precinct of his permanent address listed on his registration form — and his name was not found on record there either.

Unable to cast his vote on Nov. 7, Kearns was notified that his registration form, along with several others, was returned to NCCU because of incomplete information.

Kearns completed his ballot on Sept. 7, through a registration drive that was part of a competition between NCCU and N.C. A&T University to register the most number of students in their precincts.

NCCU registered over 1,000 students, or 25 percent of the total number of people (4,217) registered in precinct 49.
 Kearns says he was never informed that his ballot was incorrect and did not realize that he would not be able to vote.

“There was a precinct conflict,” said NCCU Student Government Association President Timothy Peterkin. “Students wrote their home addresses where they should have put their dorm addresses and wrote their dorm addresses where they should have wrote their P.O. Boxes.”

Some students omitted information completely or made other errors like listing the day of the week instead of their birth date.

Sophomore class Vice President Mary Whitfield informed Kearns that his registration form was supposed to be sent back to him for corrections, but that it remained on Peterkin’s desk with numerous others.

According to Peterkin, each application was reviewed and the students whose applications were incorrectly filled out were contacted so corrections could be made.

Some applications were sent back by the Board of Elections, and those students were also contacted.  Any applications remaining on his desk belonged to students who could not be contacted.

Approximately 300 forms were corrected and resubmitted, according to Peterkin.

Students experiencing problems on Election Day were still allowed to vote provisionally.

Under this option, students could cast their ballots and have them returned in a special envelope to the Board of Elections, where they would be reviewed individually. 

If registration materials were sent in by the deadline, Oct. 13, but were inaccurate, they could be corrected and their vote would be counted.

However, if no registration materials were found, or materials were late, the votes would not be counted.

According to Peterkin, all students that registered before the deadline were able to make corrections, and therefore their votes were counted.

Kearns, member of the SGA congress, said after he found out about the incorrect registration forms, he tried contacting at least 35 students whose forms needed to be corrected, but could not reach all of them.

“If every school is making mistakes like this, then that is a lot of people’s votes not getting counted,” Kearns said.

Kearns visited Chancellor Chambers to inform him of the mishap and, according to Kearns, was told by Chambers that there would be an investigation.

Kearns said he completed the forms based on the instructions given to Whitfield, which she explained to the students.

Henrietta Harris, SGA advisor, said the SGA office did an outstanding job registering voters. She said the SGA contacted as many students as they could to correct their registration forms.

Harris added that anyone who registers after September, during an election year, risks problems with the registration process since this is the busiest time of the year for the board of elections. According to Harris, she, too, had errors on her registration form, but was able to vote provisionally and correct them later.

N.C. Central University hosts the N.C. Space Grant Consortium’s Space and Technology Symposium in the Hubbard Chemistry Building 9 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 18.