University of Idaho polling location sees Election Day difficulty

By Anthony Kuipers, Moscow-Pullman Daily News

University of Idaho students and other Moscow residents had to wait in line for hours during Election Day to cast their vote as poll workers were “overwhelmed” by the large number of voters, according to the Latah County auditor.

Anya Zuercher is a U of I junior and a member of Babe Vote, a nonprofit that encourages students to vote. She said many would-be voters gave up and went home before they filled their ballots. 

Some student voters were also turned away because they didn’t have the correct form of identification or proof of residency.

 “The phone service was very bad there, there was very low Wi-Fi. It took like 10 minutes to look up anything,” she said. “So, even if they had proof of residency on their phones, the ability to access that was limited as well.”

The U of I Student Recreation Center was a Nov. 5 polling location for five precincts in Moscow. One of those precincts, the 8th Precinct, encompasses the U of I dorms and some of Greek Row.

Residents are allowed to register to vote on Election Day in Idaho, and the SRC drew more new voters than the county was prepared for, Latah County Auditor Julie Fry said.

“With 1,077 new voters that day, we were just really completely overwhelmed at the SRC,” Fry said.

The entire county drew a record number of 3,565 same-day voter registrations, she said.

Fry said previous elections she has presided over paled in comparison to this fall’s election in terms of voter turnout. In the 2020 general election, only 455 people voted in the 8th Precinct, she said.

“This is my first big election, and we definitely learned a lot during this election,” she said.

Fry and Zuercher both confirmed that the SRC ran out of voter registration forms, which meant county workers had to deliver new forms to the polling location three times during the course of the day.

“That’s ridiculous,” Zuercher said. “They didn’t plan outright.”

Zuercher was at the SRC that day not only to cast her own vote, but as a volunteer helping transport people to the polling location and to make sure pedestrians were able to cross the street safely.

Fry said her staff had to use every piece of election equipment it had to keep up with the large number of voters.

Zuercher said some people waited in lines for as long as seven hours. Some grew so frustrated that they left without casting their ballot.

“I don’t know where someone went wrong, but something went wrong,” she said.

She said the multiple precinct lines and lack of signage made the facility congested and difficult to navigate. Zuercher said she stood in the wrong line for 20 minutes before realizing it was the line for people who had not yet registered to vote.

“There were students filling out their registration forms on the wall because they didn’t have enough table space,” Zuercher said.

She said many people were unclear about what kind of identification or proof of residency they needed in order to register. 

Fry said some people were not allowed to vote because they did not have the proper Idaho identification, passport or proof of residency.

“We had to turn some people away, but that’s the law,” Fry said.

Both Fry and Zuercher said they went on campus earlier this year to educate students about how to register early. In Idaho, people could register early online until Oct. 11. After that, people could only register at the polls on Election Day.

Fry and Zuercher said they had a difficult time persuading students to register early. Zuercher said many students were intimidated by Idaho’s registration requirements.

Zuercher emphasized that many of the new voters at the SRC included people who weren’t students.

Fry said the county will be more selective about assigning poll workers who are capable of handling busy voting locations. She said the county is also going to use grant money to order more election equipment, such as electronic poll books, to make the process more efficient. Fry said her staff will continue efforts to educate people about voting registration.

Unlike Zuercher, Fry said she doesn’t believe that allowing multiple precincts to vote at the SRC caused the delays on Election Day. Fry said some of the precincts at the SRC had short lines, and the election equipment is programmed to only work for one assigned precinct.

She added that people in the other precincts appreciate the convenience of being able to vote at the SRC, which is closer to their homes than the other voting locations.

Fry said that the people she saw at the SRC were calm and patient, but Zuercher said she could see voters becoming frustrated with the experience. Zuercher told the Daily News on Tuesday she was in the process of reporting the Election Day issues to the Idaho Secretary of State’s office.

Fry said she knows it was a hard day for people, “but at the end of the day, like we told people, we want you to vote, we want you to be here and you will get to vote.”