当由共和党控制的吉尔福德县选举委员会拒绝北卡罗来纳农业技术州立大学学生在校园内设立提前投票点的请求时，像吉米·霍尔顿二世这样的学生面临两个选择：花高达30美元打网约车，或在85华氏度（约29.4摄氏度）的高温下步行45分钟前往最近的投票点。
When the Republican-controlled Guilford County Board of Elections rejected North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University students’ request for an on-campus early voting location, students like Jimmie Holton Jr. had two options: Pay up to $30 for a rideshare or walk 45 minutes in 85-degree heat to the nearest site.
和该校许多学生一样，霍尔顿没有车。于是，他和格林斯伯勒的另外300名学生选择步行。他们前往投票点的行动在10月在网络上广为传播。
Like many of the school’s students, Holton didn’t have a car. So he and 300 other students in Greensboro chose to walk. Their march to the polls went viral in October.
一项2024年的研究发现，四分之三的高等教育机构校园内没有任何线下投票选项。如今，地方共和党选举官员正在取消为数不多的现有校园投票点。
Three in four higher ed institutions do not have any in-person voting options on campus, a 2024 study found. Now, local Republican election officials are taking away the few that do exist.
全美有近2000万名像霍尔顿这样有资格投票的大学生——但他们能否到达投票点，已成为关键摇摆州的一个关键问题，这些州的胶着竞争将决定民主党能否翻盘夺回参议院控制权。在得克萨斯州、北卡罗来纳州和俄亥俄州，共和党选举官员削减了服务大量黑人和拉美裔学生的大学校园投票点。这些学生曾被长辈嘲讽为几十年来政治冷漠度最高的投票群体，如今正在反击。
There are nearly 20 million college students, like Holton, who are eligible to vote across the United States—but their ability to get to polling places has become a critical issue in battleground states where tight races will determine whether Democrats flip the Senate. In Texas, North Carolina, and Ohio, Republican election officials have slashed voting sites at campuses serving large numbers of Black and Latino students. Those students, once derided their elders as the most politically apathetic voting bloc in decades, are pushing back.
“这就是‘2025计划’剧本在地方层面的落地实施，民众需要保持警惕，”得克萨斯州塔兰特县专员阿丽萨·西蒙斯说，该县共和党多数派在9月投票决定在中期选举前取消92个已获批的投票点。
“It’s the Project 2025 playbook being carried out at the local level, and people need to pay attention,” said Alisa Simmons, a commissioner in Tarrant County, Texas, where a Republican majority voted in September to eliminate 92 approved polling locations ahead of the midterms.
“如果你们不想让学生投票——好吧，现在你们真的是在激励他们去投票，”得克萨斯大学阿灵顿分校学生会主席说。
“If you didn’t want students to vote—well, now, you’re really getting them to vote,” said the University of Texas at Arlington’s student body president.
在塔兰特县被排除在批准名单之外的投票地点中，包括德克萨斯大学阿灵顿分校，该校自2012年起一直将其马维里克活动中心作为投票地点。德州大学阿灵顿分校拥有近43,000名学生，其中约三分之二自认为是有色人种。据OpenCampus统计，2024年有超过8,000人在那里投了早期票。西蒙斯和另一位专员——这五人组成的塔兰特县专员法庭中仅有的两名民主党人——曾单独反对在中期选举前减少投票地点。本月早些时候，一名法官驳回了恢复这92个地点的努力。
Among polling places left off the approved list in Tarrant County: The University of Texas at Arlington, which had used its Maverick Activities Center as a voting location since 2012. UT Arlington has nearly 43,000 students, about two-thirds of whom identify as people of color. In 2024, more than 8,000 people cast early votes there, according to OpenCampus Simmons and one other commissioner—the board’s only Democrats—were alone on the five-member Tarrant County Commissioners’ Court in opposing the reduction of polling locations ahead of the midterms. Earlier this month, a judge ruled against an effort to reinstate the 92 locations.
“如果你们不想让学生投票——好吧，现在你们真的是在激励他们去投票，”德州大学阿灵顿分校学生会主席安德烈斯·莫拉莱斯说。莫拉莱斯表示，取消校园投票点，选举官员“点燃了一把火，我认为如果他们不拿走这个地点，是不会意识到这一点的。”
“If you didn’t want students to vote—well, now, you’re really getting them to vote,” said Andres Morales, UT Arlington’s student body president. By eliminating the campus’ polling site, Morales said, election officials “created a fire that I don’t think they would have realized if they hadn’t taken it away.”
他说，学生们在校园内以新的活力动员起来，组织选民登记活动、提前投票聚会，并提供前往投票地点的免费交通：“你走不了100码远，就会有人走过来问你：‘嘿，你登记投票了吗？’” 在北卡罗来纳州，吉尔福德县选举委员会于8月以3比2的党派路线表决，拒绝在北卡罗来纳农业技术州立大学和北卡罗来纳大学格林斯伯勒分校设立校园提前投票点，这两所学校的学生以及附近的本内特学院——一所历史悠久的黑人女子文理学院——的学生共同合作，组织了一场前往投票点的提前投票游行。
Students have mobilized with renewed energy on campus, he said, organizing voter registration drives, early voting parties, and free transportation to voting locations: “You cannot go more than 100 yards without someone coming up to you and saying, ‘Hey, are you registered to vote?’”In North Carolina, where the Guilford County Board of Elections voted 3-2 along party lines in August to deny on-campus early voting locations at both North Carolina A&T and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, students at both schools and the nearby Bennett College, a historically Black women’s liberal arts college, worked together to organize an early voting march to the polls.
“你有3,500名学生基本上被困在校园里，”北卡农技大四学生、Protect Ours NC联合创始人希亚·罗齐尔说，“这实质上制造了一种现代版的人头税。” 让学生难以亲自投票的，不仅仅是在上课和打工间隙赶往投票点的问题。
“You have 3,500 students who are essentially landlocked,” said Shia Rozier, a senior at NC A&T and co-founder of Protect Ours NC“It essentially creates a modern-day poll tax.”It’s not just getting to the polls in between classes and jobs that makes it hard for students to vote in person.
在俄亥俄州，历史悠久的黑人大学——中央州立大学的学生们计划往返六英里（约9.7公里）亲自去投票，因为格林县选举委员会将他们最近的投票站从一所毗邻的大学搬迁到了一座距离校园步行两个半小时的教堂。本周，全国性和地方性组织聚集在中央州立大学校园内，帮助学生制定投票计划。
In Ohio, students at the historically Black Central State University are planning six-mile trips to vote in person after the Greene County Board of Elections moved their nearest polling location from an adjacent university to a church a two-and-a-half-hour walk from campus. National and local organizations gathered on CSU’s campus this week to help students make voting plans.
得克萨斯州青年公民参与非营利组织MOVE Texas的政治总监费尔南达·马尔多纳多表示，对于在就读期间在新州注册投票的学生来说，学生证不被视为有效身份证明。得克萨斯州也是八个不提供在线选民登记的州之一，这意味着学生——这一频繁在宿舍和公寓间搬迁的流动群体——不断需要亲自更新登记信息。
For students registering to vote in a new state while enrolled, student IDs aren’t considered a valid form of identification, said Fernanda Maldonado, political director at MOVE Texas, a youth civic engagement nonprofit. Texas is also one of eight states not to offer online voter registration, meaning students—a transient population moving frequently between dorms and apartments—constantly need to update their registration in person.
马尔多纳多说：“我们看到校园投票站整体减少，这是他们必须应对的系统性障碍，而每一个障碍对年轻选民的打击都更大。”
“What we’ve been seeing with the diminishing of the campus polling locations overall is these systemic obstacles that they’re having to navigate, and each one of those hits young voters more,” Maldonado said.
得克萨斯州塔兰特县专员西蒙斯称，在大学校园等多元化程度高且倾向民主党的地区削减投票地点，是显而易见的选民压制。
Simmons, the Tarrant County commissioner in Texas, called cutting voting locations in areas like college campuses, which are heavily diverse and skew Democratic, obvious voter suppression.
西蒙斯说：“这是试图让选民感到困惑，让有色选民干脆举手说：‘算了，我不投票了。’如果你怕对手，就应该打一场漂亮的竞选。但剥夺选民和选区居民的权利——这种反弹对他们来说形势不妙。”
“This is an attempt to confuse voters, to have voters of color just throw their hands up and say, ‘Well, forget it. I’m not going to vote,” Simmons said. “If you are afraid of your opponent, you should just run a great race. But disenfranchising your constituents and the voters—the blowback is not looking good for them.”