The rush is on for students wishing to register for the upcoming general election Nov. 4. Today marks the last day students will be able to register through the normal voting process in North Carolina.
On campus, efforts to register as many students as possible will be in full effect until the deadline passes.
"We are going to knock on every door that we have not already with the goal of having knocked on every door on campus by the deadline," said Duke Democrats President Ben Bergmann, a sophomore.
Even with the deadline approaching, there are some students who still have not registered to vote, and perhaps some who do not intend to. There are students, however, who have long been registered to vote.
"I've been registered since July," said Nikhil Taneja, a sophomore. "I knew that once I reached campus, I wouldn't have time."
Some students said their decision to switch registration from their home precincts to Durham hinged on absentee voting concerns.
"I actually had registered in Florida, which is a notorious swing state, but then I decided that I didn't want to do absentee voting," said Janan Crocker, a senior. "I'm skeptical that they actually count absentee ballots."
Concerns about voter disenfranchisement are not limited to absentee voting.
An article in The New York Times Wednesday listed North Carolina as one of six states potentially mishandling voter registration cards, thereby blocking people from properly registering. North Carolina was cited as a state using Social Security data to verify registrations, a screening method that could fail and wrongly invalidate cards.
In a statement released Oct. 8 by the North Carolina Board of Elections in response to the story, however, Executive Director Gary Bartlett said North Carolina policies are proper. He said the Social Security method is used in conjunction with other verification processes, when other new voter information is not provided. Bartlett added that neither reporters nor the commissioner of the Social Security Administration had contacted the Board of Elections office regarding the allegations.
In Durham county, election officials said anyone who has registered to vote will be able to on election day.
"The bottom line is we are not guilty and should not have been included in that article," said Mike Ashe, director of the county board of elections. "We have not 'purged' anybody and we did not remove anybody."
Since the last presidential election, the number of registered voters has increased. According to county election officials, approximately 152,700 voters were registered in Durham County four years ago. Currently, 176,000 voters are registered.
"Huge, huge and huger," Ashe said of the increase. "We've registered thousands and thousands of new voters and we are the busiest we have ever been. In the period from Sept. 1 to Oct. 4, we've had 10,422 new registrations."
Early voting in North Carolina begins Thursday, and students and others will be able to vote on campus in the Old Trinity Room of the West Union Building. It is the first time Duke has offered an on-site voting location.
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