Group Petitioning ASU Chancellor to Sign "Attestation" Form

The Watauga Voting Rights Task Force (VRTF), the group that successfully sued in 2014 and again in 2016 to return early voting to the AppState Student Union, has mounted a petition to AppState Chancellor Sheri Everts, urging her to sign the Board of Elections "attestation" form which would certify student photo IDs as appropriate for the purposes of voting.

Taking her cues from the UNC Board of Governors (and specifically from UNC General Counsel Thomas C. Shanahan), Everts has been dragging her feet about the form and signaling that she has no intention of signing it. She got "cover" from Shanahan last Friday when he told a group from the Faculty Assembly that in his opinion no UNC constituent institution could sign the form.

The lawyers for the Voting Rights Task Force, among others, think that Shanahan is just wrong, that he has decided to apply a blanket disability because of some problems at a handful of colleges over official student photos. Those problems do not exist at AppState. Nor at a majority of the institutions including UNC-Chapel Hill.

Student Government at AppState is also getting active in this fight, which appears far from over as the March 15th deadline date looms closer.