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Lack of early voting riles up N.C. campus already split by partisan gerrymander

North Carolina A&T State University has long been a focus in the state's seemingly perpetual dispute over gerrymandering. Now, students are fighting for an opportunity to vote easily in a potentially crucial presidential primary.

The campus of the country's largest historically black college has been cleaved in half by Republican mapmakers, split for 2016 and 2018 between two lopsidedly Republican congressional districts so as to minimize the impact of votes from the overwhelmingly Democratic student body of 12,000.

A lawsuit challenging that House district map as violating the rights of Democrats to fair elections and free speech under the state constitution, filed last week, cites the dividing of the A&T electorate as one of the most egregious examples of this partisan gerrymandering method, known as "cracking."

While that suit plays out, students have turned their attention to March 3. That's when Democrats in North Carolina and 16 other states will cast votes on a Super Tuesday that could reshape, or perhaps effectively decide, the presidential nominating contest.

Turns out, that's also the Tuesday in the middle of A&T's spring break week.


And, if the past is a guide, there will be no early voting location on campus so students can cast their ballots before vacation. That is why a group has launched an online petition drive to get the city of Greensboro or the Guilford County Board of Elections to stand up such a polling station.

More than 1,500 have signed the petition so far, spurred on by a "#LetAggiesVote" campaign on social media.

"I feel like letting Aggies vote should be the bare minimum," Cole Riley, a sophomore political science major organizing the effort, told the campus newspaper."That's just how America is supposed to work. A movement asking us to vote ... we shouldn't need a movement in the first place."

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Independent Voters Just Got Power in Nevada – if the Governor Lets It Happen

"On Las Vegas Boulevard" sign.

Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash. Unplash+ license obtained by IVN Editor Shawn Griffiths.

Independent Voters Just Got Power in Nevada – if the Governor Lets It Happen

CARSON CITY, NEV. - A surprise last-minute bill to open primary elections to Nevada’s largest voting bloc, registered unaffiliated voters, moved quickly through the state legislature and was approved by a majority of lawmakers on the last day of the legislative session Monday.

The bill, AB597, allows voters not registered with a political party to pick between a Republican and Democratic primary ballot in future election cycles. It does not apply to the state’s presidential preference elections, which would remain closed to registered party members.

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In April 2025, the SAVE Act has been reintroduced in the 119th Congress and passed the House, with a much stronger chance of becoming law given the current political landscape.

SDI Productions

The SAVE Act: Addressing a Non-Existent Problem at the Cost of Voter Access?

In July 2024, I wrote about the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act when it was first introduced in Congress. And Sarah and I discussed it in an episode of Beyond the Bill Number which you can still listen to. Now, in April 2025, the SAVE Act has been reintroduced in the 119th Congress and passed the House, with a much stronger chance of becoming law given the current political landscape. It's time to revisit this legislation and examine its implications for American voters.

Read the IssueVoter analysis of the bill here for further insight and commentary.

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Independent Voters Gain Ground As New Mexico Opens Primaries
person in blue denim jeans and white sneakers standing on gray concrete floor
Photo by Phil Scroggs on Unsplash

Independent Voters Gain Ground As New Mexico Opens Primaries

With the stroke of a pen, New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham enfranchised almost 350,000 independent voters recently by signing a bill for open primaries. Just a few years ago, bills to open the primaries were languishing in the state legislature, as they have historically across the country. But as more and more voters leave both parties and declare their independence, the political system is buckling. And as independents begin to organize and speak out, it’s going to continue to buckle in their direction.

In 2004, there were 120,000 independent voters in New Mexico. A little over 10 years later, when the first open primary bill was introduced, that number had more than doubled. That bill never even got a hearing. But today the number of independents in New Mexico and across the country is too big to ignore. Independents are the largest group of voters in ten states and the second-largest in most others. That’s putting tremendous pressure on a system that wasn’t designed with them in mind.

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"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

"Voter Here" sign outside of a polling location.

Getty Images, Grace Cary

Stopping the Descent Toward Banana Republic Elections

President Trump’s election-related executive order begins by pointing out practices in Canada, Sweden, Brazil, and elsewhere that outperform the U.S. But it is Trump’s order itself that really demonstrates how far we’ve fallen behind. In none of the countries mentioned, or any other major democracy in the world, would the head of government change election rules by decree, as Trump has tried to do.

Trump is the leader of a political party that will fight for control of Congress in 2026, an election sure to be close, and important to his presidency. The leader of one side in such a competition has no business unilaterally changing its rules—that’s why executive decrees changing elections only happen in tinpot dictatorships, not democracies.

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