News & Blog

By Rob Tyson

Last month, several college students sued the Greenville County Office of Voter Registration and Elections challenging the County’s use of a questionnaire for persons seeking to register to vote using an on-campus address. Circuit Judge Robin Stillwell issued a temporary injunction ordering the County to cease from using the questionnaire. Greenville County had used the questionnaire since the 1970’s as a means to further identify whether the college students registering to vote were “Greenville County residents.” The questionnaire asked questions about where the persons banked, attended church, and registered their vehicles and other similar questions.
The Greenville County Voter Registration Office reports 152 students who listed their address as on-campus, have registered to vote. A good number of these did so prior to the lawsuit. The Voter Registration Office also reports of this total, 91 were from Bob Jones University, 24 from Greenville Technical College, 22 from North Greenville University, and 15 from Furman University.
At some point, the Circuit Court will have a hearing on the merits of the lawsuit; however, for purposes of registering to vote, these college campus residing students have the opportunity to vote in Greenville County.
For more information, see the article in the Greenville News attached here.