On the very day the NC state GOP was vowing to take their voter suppression initiatives to the Supreme Court, the following interaction happened between a group that just wanted to register voters and the head of the College Republicans at High Point University, Leigh Thomas.
The group was trying to get on campus to register students to vote. High Point requires any group to have a student liaison. The young GOP chairwoman was was having none of it:
“I’m just not sure if this is something I would want to have on this High Point University campus, the registration of voting [sic].”“I don’t approve of it whatsoever—on a campus like High Point University,” she said. ”I don’t want to have any voting registration happening on this campus, with students.”
They tried telling her they just wanted to give blank registration forms to the students, but then she just told him what she really thought:
“I just do not want to have people being registered to vote, whatsoever.”
Just as disgusting is the University's response, which actually tried to defend Leigh Thomas. Spokeswoman Pamela Haynes said that Thomas was only concerned about "the safety and security of our students".
This saddens me because this new generation of republicans thinks that this unpatriotic mindset is normal, and Leigh Thomas does represent the typical mindset of the modern Republican. It is the exact same mindset that Rick Scott used to deny college students convenient voting stations, along with refusing to allow college IDs as a form of voter identification. Students = thinking people = bad, so instead of examining our crappy policies we will instead make it more difficult to vote.
This is in stark contrast from my college days, when both parties were trying to register as many people as possible. It's now clear that the GOP of today has lost the public relations battle, so their new tactic is to make it as difficult and as inconvenient to vote as they can.
5:34 PM PT: To clarify a few questions asked me (ht expatgirl and Lonestarmike):
Q. Why couldn't they go through the College/Young Democrats?
A. This school doesn't have any. This is a right-wing Christian college that is one party only.
The group that wants to register the kids to vote, ironically, is a conservative group called "Turning Point USA". Republicans don't even trust registering students on a sheltered conservative campus!
Q. What gives her the right to stifle voting registration? Who can I complain to? A. Trying to explain to a conservative why voting rights aren't just patriotic but critical for a Constitutional democracy to work will only fall on deaf ears. But be my guest:
Pamela Haynes: phaynes@highpoint.edu
Dr. Nido R. Qubein (the university President): nqubein@highpoint.edu
Leigh Thomas (young woman in video): thomal12@highpoint.edu
Q. Was she right about consent to being recorded?
A. NC is a one-party consent state, which means if two or more people are engaged in a conversation, it's ok to record it as long as one of the parties involved knows it's being recorded.
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