Katie Tobin and her roommate woke up early Tuesday morning to cast their votes. The two sophomores trekked out to the West Campus bus stop, planning to hitch a ride to the polls on the free shuttles organized by several student groups.
But no vans were running. From 8:50 a.m. until about 9:20 a.m., they stood there with about seven other students waiting. “We were like, what’s going on?” Tobin said.
Two vans were supposed to transport voters from campus to the West and Central Campus polling site at the Patterson Recreation Center near the Medical Center. Transportation did not start until about 10:30 a.m., however, due to a logistical error at the Office of Parking and Transportation Services.
“We made a mistake,” said Cathy Reeve, director of parking and transportation. “We’re very sorry. For those individuals that tried to get out there and vote, it was an inconvenience.”
Duke Student Government, the Community Service Center and Campus Council joined together to sponsor the rides. Senior Mary Ellison Baars, CSC co-director, spoke with transportation officials several weeks ago. The group originally planned to hire one charter bus to transport voters from noon to 7 p.m.
After several conversations with transportation officials, Baars said the groups decided to employ two vans instead of the bus. Because the vans were less expensive, the service hours expanded so that vans would begin running at 9 a.m. and finish at 8 p.m., half an hour after polls closed.
Officials at the transportation office approved the change, but an employee neglected to fill out the appropriate paperwork that instructs the drivers where to go.
“Although we confirmed [the change] verbally and through e-mail, she did not go back and make the change in the log,” Baars said.
The van drivers did not know they were supposed to transport voters this morning, so Tobin and many other students were scrambling to find early morning rides to the polls.
“The nine of us were really frustrated with this,” Tobin said. “I think we were some of the more active ones who wanted to make sure that we cast our votes.”
The group of waiting students realized the vans were not coming, and several of them called a taxi. The taxi driver got lost on Central Campus, Tobin said, and the students returned to West.
By the time they returned, one of the students had retrieved her car. She offered the voters a ride in her five-seat vehicle.
“We fit seven people into this girl’s Volvo,” Tobin said. They voted and returned to the bus stop to find another 10 students waiting to cast their ballots. “We had to break the news to them,” she said.
The original group of voters notified DSG that the vans were not running. Senior Pasha Majdi, DSG president, said he and Baars worked to immediately fix the situation. By 11 a.m. the vans were picking people up as originally planned.
Majdi said the coalition of student groups paid about $900 for the buses, and he was disappointed that parking and transportation services did not provide the promised service.
“There’s literally nothing more a student group can do besides confirming that it’s starting at 9 in the morning—besides driving the bus,” he said.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.