Prairie View students marched in 2006 for voter registration and turnout. Photo: Evan White

During a press conference held Tuesday in Houston, PVAMU Student Government Association, Black Youth Vote! Texas and a host of local community leaders appealed to students across the country to assist in their plight by joining them for the March for Voting Justice or by sending a letter to the Department of Justice to support their efforts. Officials at the historically Black university have already agreed to excuse the 8,000-plus student body to participate in the march, which will be held on the first day of early voting.

According to Waller County Judge DeWayne Charleston, recently the Waller County Commission decided to eliminate six early voting locations in the county, including the one adjacent to campus, requiring PVAMU students to drive or walk 7.3 miles to vote in Hempstead, a nearby town. Waller County covers 525 square miles and has but a single polling site for early voting this year.

"Without a doubt, the change makes voting more difficult for the PVAMU students," Judge Charleston said.
On Jan. 25, the Lawyers Committee on Civil Rights sent a in a letter to the Department of Justice stating, "The elimination of temporary early voting sites, combined with the history of early voting by minority voters at the temporary sites such as Prairie View and Brookshire, and the difficulty that many minority voters will have in getting to Hempstead, unquestionably places minority voters in a worse position and thus is retrogressive. In addition, this change was motivated, at least in part, by a discriminatory purpose."

"Early voting in Texas starts on Feb. 19," says Christina Sanders, Black Youth Vote! Texas coordinator. "The students don't have 60 days to wait for a response, so we are going forward with the march to keep the pressure on the DOJ."

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