After six years without early voting on college campuses, a site is back at Edward Waters

Early voting is going back to school with the return of a polling site at Edward Waters University this year for the first time since 2018.

The push to bring an early voting site back to Edward Waters University was a six-year campaign in itself. College students, neighborhood residents, voting rights advocates and community organizations embarked on petition drives and appeals for college campuses to once again have early voting in Duval County.

As early voting started Wednesday in Duval County at 24 sites across the country — the most ever for early voting here — Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland joined the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville and the NAACP in urging people to take advantage of the Edward Waters site and others to cast votes for the August 20 primary election and also the November presidential election.

"Now is the time to show up like you never have before," said Kelly Frazier, president of the Northside Coalition of Jacksonville.

Having an early voting site on a college campus has been a matter of legal and political controversy for a decade. In 2014, then Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner said the state's early voting law didn't allow an early voting site on the University of Florida campus.

The League of Women Voters and some college students sued in federal court. A federal judge ruled in 2018 it's unconstitutional to prevent county supervisors from using college campuses for early voting sites. That ruling resulted in Mike Hogan, who was the Duval County supervisor of elections at the time, adding Edward Waters University and the University of North Florida as early voting sites in the November 2018 election topped by the race for governor.

But the court ruling didn't require early voting at college campus site. Hogan did not carry over Edward Waters and UNF as early voting locations in elections after 2018.

When Holland became supervisor of elections last year, he won support from City Council to expand early voting sites to 24 spots in this year's elections, including Edward Waters, up from 19 sites previously.

Isaiah Rumlin, president of the Jacksonville chapter of the NAACP , said too often, early voting sites have opened in predominantly Black parts of Jacksonville only to close later because of low runout. He said in the case of the Edward Waters site, Black voters accounted for 91% of those who cast early ballots at it in 2018.

"This will be a historical year in the life of this community as it relates to getting folks out to vote," Rumlin said. "It will be a historical year as it relates to the national and local elections."

He and Frazier said the site is well-located not only for college students but for surrounding neighborhoods whose residents do not have transportation. Mount Olive Primitive Primitive Baptist Church Elder Lee Harris, senior pastor of the church, said one form of voter suppression is a lack of access to polling sites so returning early voting to Edward Waters lowers that barrier.

"It serves a community — a historically Black underprivileged community —that has deteriorated over the years because of lack of access," Harris said.

Holland said the goal was to have an early voting site within five miles of every Duval County resident and "we're very close to that today."

The Edward Waters early voting site is in an area with a large concentration of Democratic Party voters. Holland, a Republican, said he did not get any pushback from Republican leaders about opening the site at Edward Waters.

He said his stance is "always equal access and everybody knows that. So from that standpoint, the only way someone could argue 'why are you doing it here' is if they don't have the same access, and we have pretty good access throughout the entire community."

He said UNF could potentially be an early voting site in future years but currently, there are three early voting sites within five miles of UNF.

County supervisors of elections have some leeway in how many days they offer for early voting, provided they meet minimum requirements set by state law.

Clay County will kick off early voting on Thursday with seven sites daily through Aug. 17. St. Johns County will begin early voting on Saturday at seven locations open each day until Aug. 17.

In Duval County, early voting had been slated to start Monday but the arrival of Hurricane Debby in Florida caused Holland to move it back by two days to Wednesday. Early voting for the Aug. 20 primary election will be from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day until Aug. 18 at these sites:

• Argyle Branch Library - 7973 Old Middleburg Rd South.
• Balis Community Center - 1513 LaSalle St.
• Beaches Branch Library - 600 3rd St., Neptune Beach.
• Bradham & Brooks Branch Library - 1755 Edgewood Ave. West
• Charles Webb Wesconnett Regional Library - 6887 103rd St.
• Edward Waters University's Schell-Sweet Community Resource Center - 1697 Kings Road.
• Florida State College at Jacksonville's Deerwood campus - 9911 Old Baymeadows Road.
• Highlands Regional Library - 1826 Dunn Ave.
• Holiday Inn Bartram Park South -13934 Village Lake Circle.
• Legends Community Center -130 Soutel Drive.
• Mandarin Regional Library - 3330 Kori Road.
• Maxville Branch Library - 8375 Maxville Blvd.
• Oceanway Community Center - 12215 Sago Ave. West.
• Pablo Creek Regional Library - 13295 Beach Blvd.
• Police Athletic League – 3450 Monument Road.
• Regency Square Regional Library - 9900 Regency Square Blvd.
• South Mandarin Regional Library - 12125 San Jose Blvd.
• Southeast Regional Library - 10599 Deerwood Park Blvd.
• Southside Community Center - 10080 Beach Blvd.
• Supervisor of Elections - 105 E. Monroe St.
• UF/IFAS Extension Duval County - 1010 N. McDuff Ave.
• University Park Branch Library - 3435 University Blvd. North.
• West Branch Library - 1425 Chaffee Road South.
• Willow Branch Library - 2875 Park Street, Jacksonville.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: After six years without early voting on college campuses, a site is back at Edward Waters