Office of Elections and Voter Registration – Lubbock County (Toluwani Osibamowo)
By Toluwani Osibamowo
With the early voting period in Texas beginning Oct. 13, the process behind voting became more complicated in these months since the primaries, raising discussions about the importance of voting early.
Dorothy Kennedy, the Lubbock County Elections administrator, said because of the historic nature of this election, the opportunity to speak out is driving more people to go to the polls early than ever before.
“So many people have been cooped up during COVID, and they haven’t been able to interact, get to be social, or have meetings to debate things, and this is one way that they’re able to have their voice heard, is in the voting box,” Kennedy said, seated in the bustling back room of the Lubbock Elections Office building. “So when they go to the voting machine, they’re able to have their voice heard.”
First-time voter Zaria Sumling, a junior from Houston, said the events of social change that took place over the summer, such as the Black Lives Matter movement and the escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic, have been the major motivators for young people, specifically Tech students like her, to go vote early.
“Here in Lubbock, especially, because of the campus, there’s more students, and we have more influence on what’s going on in politics,” Sumling said.
The ongoing conversation about voting accessibility takes on more gravity when considering new measures taking place because of COVID-19. Various polling sites are making adjustments to facilitate the early voting process for citizens.
Kennedy said the Texas governor’s office had been encouraging the use of curbside voting procedures to maintain the safety of at-risk voters as well as those working for polling sites.
“That’s basically the majority of what our workers are, is the group that is most at risk,” Kennedy said, “so we’ve really been encouraging everyone — voters are not required to wear a mask, but we highly encourage it so that we can keep our workers safe, as well as the voters.”
According to an analysis published ahead of print in the Election Law Journal, Texas was deemed the state with the most restrictive voting process in the United States due to outdated voting procedures and a decrease in polling stations.
Jahnavi Arun, a sophomore at the University of Texas at Dallas who is also voting for the first time in this election, said the key to making voting more accessible is an effort by Texas representatives to educate citizens more thoroughly about the voting process.
“There are just so many components to it that just aren’t explicitly advertised or known,” Arun said. “Definitely changing representatives and also increasing the amount of awareness that comes from becoming a voter. I think that would really help.”
Davey Davison, lead clerk for the polling location at Robert H. Ewalt Student Recreation Center at Texas Tech, said he would like to see people learn more about how the voting process works in order to demystify it.
“A lot of people think it’s a lot more complicated than it actually is,” Davison said, “that it’s a lot more difficult to vote than it actually is — when in reality, all you really need is your driver’s license, and I can take care of them right here, right now.”
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