COLLEGE STATION, Texas — After months of controversy and media coverage, the Brazos county Commissioners Court and Texas A&M University have found a solution after removing the Memorial Student Center as an early voting location.
The county will pay approximately $5,000 for the school to utilize its buses for 36 hours during the early voting period. However, students are saying that the proposed solution isn't the right path forward.
"All they're doing is saying, Here's a $5,000 check. We did what we could and kind of just wiping their hands clean of this whole issue," Move Texas A&M member Ishika Shah said. "They know, they knew what they were doing and they had no intention of trying to reinstate the MSC as a polling location."
Now the student body and university are left to figure out how to best bus students so they can exercise their right to vote. Texas Aggies Democrats and Move Texas A&M are just a few student organizations that are raising additional funds so that the bus routes can run longer.
"This isn't a typical bus route, it's not going to be on our Aggie bus app that will inform students that this exists. So it's still a lot of communicative work on our part," Shah said. "It's just honestly so unfair because as students like I have classes I would rather focus on but voter suppression is no joke."
As well as raising funds, these student organizations are doing their best to get the word out to their fellow students that there is a way for them to vote early this election season.
"Well, we're going to definitely be like tabling in public places just like in the MSC. We're there every week to advertise our normal events as it is," Texas Aggies Democrats president Christopher Livaudais said. "So it will be their advertising where the buses are going to be running. And we're also helping with some of the funding for it as well."
The general election for the 2022 midterm elections will be held on Tues, Nov. 8.