A group of North Carolina students sued Republican state officials last week to restore early voting sites on three college campuses across the state, including at the United States’ largest historically Black college.The lawsuit came just over two weeks after the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) rejected the early voting sites in a 3-2 vote along party lines. It was the latest in a string of recent moves by the state election board, which came under GOP control last year, to restrict voting in the Tar Heel State. And it came just weeks before the state’s 2026 primary election in March.In the lawsuit, the students* allege that the board’s removal of voting sites at Western Carolina University (WCU), the University of North Carolina–Greensboro (UNC-G), and North Carolina A&T State University (NC A&T), the largest HBCU in the country, violated the U.S. Constitution in multiple ways.They argue that the removal unduly burdens the right to vote in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments by forcing students, who often do not have reliable transportation, to travel long distances off campus in order to cast their ballot.
