Since 2018, NC State's Talley Student Union has served as an early voting site for Wake County, sitting at the heart of the Raleigh campus. This year, the Wake County Board of Elections voted to move the polling place out of Talley to the Business Service Center -- still technically on campus, but more than a mile away and across busy Western Boulevard.
"I disagreed with the move to a site on Western Boulevard," said Gerry Cohen, a Democrat and one of two Democrats on the five-member Wake County Board of Elections. "There seemed to be no reason to do that except to inconvenience younger voters."
Cohen and his Democratic colleague are now outnumbered on the board after the state legislature shifted appointment power for county elections boards to the Republican state auditor. The board's Republican majority, including new Chairman Keith Weatherly, defended the site change, citing voter parking access as a primary reason.
"The parking is an issue. It has been for some time," Weatherly said. "You've got to go up a parking deck and down to vote. It's not convenient for a lot of people."
Cohen pushed back on that rationale, pointing to turnout data from the last presidential election. Of the roughly 21,000 votes cast at Talley in 2024, he said, only about 6,000 came from voters ages 18 to 25.
"It's a red herring," Cohen said. "There was absolutely no problem getting to the site."
Weatherly initially described the board's decision to relocate the site as unanimous.
"It was a unanimous decision of the Wake County Board of Elections," he said. "We thought we needed to move on with this."
Pressed on the board's process, Weatherly acknowledged the vote was actually 3-2 along party lines.
"If it's not unanimous, it must go to the State Board of Elections," Weatherly said, explaining why the board reported the vote as unanimous. "So in the wisdom of our board members, we chose to make it unanimous, even though clearly everybody on the board wasn't totally resolved on this issue."
Regardless of the political dispute, NC State's Pack the Polls program is now focused on helping students find the new site. The Business Service Center sits in the same parking lot as the McKimmon Center, off Varsity Drive.
For students living near Talley Student Union, that's about a 25-minute walk, including a crossing of Western Boulevard, according to Pack the Polls. From Hunt Library, on the opposite side of campus, the walk takes about 41 minutes. The site is also served by NC State's Wolfline and GoRaleigh bus routes.
Pack the Polls is organizing daily walking groups to the site on class days, along with a campuswide "Walk to the Polls" event on the first day of early voting.
"We think there's plenty of accessibility, both for students and for non-students," Weatherly said.
Wake County's early voting period begins Oct. 15. Whether the new site proves to be a fix or a fight, NC State students will be among the first to find out.
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