
{"id":700,"date":"2007-08-02T08:50:20","date_gmt":"2007-08-02T16:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/08\/02\/early-voting-site-for-campus-in-limbo\/"},"modified":"2007-08-02T08:50:20","modified_gmt":"2007-08-02T16:50:20","slug":"early-voting-site-for-campus-in-limbo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/08\/02\/early-voting-site-for-campus-in-limbo\/","title":{"rendered":"Early-voting site for campus in limbo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>By Kirk Ross<\/strong><br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/em><\/p>\n<p>When a voting site was first opened at Morehead Planetarium in 2000, plenty of students, joined by a host of elected and university officials, lined the steps for the opportunity to cast a ballot on campus for the first time. And while the idea of an on-campus voting site has focused on getting more students to turn out, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proved even more popular among university employees and those who frequent downtown as a convenient way to do one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s civic duty.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>But construction for a new exhibit at the Planetarium will render the site unusable for this fall\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s elections and an alternative proposed by county elections officials to move the site off-campus is drawing opposition both inside and outside the university.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, newly elected Student Body President Eve Carson spoke out against the move at the UNC-Chapel Hill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Board of Trustees meeting. She urged the board to do what it could to make sure a campus voting site is available.<\/p>\n<p>Orange County elections director Barry Garner said he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been working with student leaders to try to find an alternative, but that the two presented so far have drawbacks.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to state law requiring the site to be in a publicly financed building, Garner said ease of access and parking are key considerations.<\/p>\n<p>For that reason, he ruled out the Stone Center and has questions about the use of the Student Union, the two sites the university has offered.<\/p>\n<p>Garner says the Seymour Senior Center on Homestead Road has better accessibility than the union.<\/p>\n<p>He expects that a new site would be temporary.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It will just be for this election,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, adding that he expects roughly 2,000 voters to cast their ballots at whatever site is chosen.<\/p>\n<p>The county Board of Elections will hear a presentation on the union site and the Seymour Center site at a meeting Tuesday, Aug. 7, at 4 p.m. at the Board of Elections office on King Street in Hillsborough.<\/p>\n<p>Garner says the board can pick one, both or none of the sites.<\/p>\n<p>If the board opts to open both locations, he estimates that it will cost the county roughly $10,000 to pay for additional staffing for the two-week early-voting period.<\/p>\n<p>If another alternative is found downtown or on campus in time to review it, Garner says he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll present that one to the board as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kirk Ross Staff Writer When a voting site was first opened at Morehead Planetarium in 2000, plenty of students, joined by a host of elected and university officials, lined the steps for the opportunity to cast a ballot on campus for the first time. And while the idea of an on-campus voting site has&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}