Software engineering sophomore Erick Noecker, left, software engineering senior Liam Crowley, center, and civil engineering junior Brooklynn Nguyen bike during Roll to the Polls on Oct. 23 outside the Maverick Activities Center. Ngyuen said he goes to a lot of the rides Walkable Arlington hosts.
This year, voting requires more planning than in previous elections.
Because — for the second year in a row — the Maverick Activities Center has been cut as a voting location, and many are looking for an alternative. The site’s absence came from a Sept. 1 Tarrant County Commissioners Court decision to cut voting sites.
The closest voting location to UTA is the Tarrant County
Sub-Courthouse in Arlington on Abram Street. For people with cars, the trip is three minutes from campus; for others, it was a 30-minute walk.
The decrease in voting locations, and high voter turnout, is creating longer lines for those who make it to the polls.
Below are short passages detailing UTA students’ and Arlington residents’ early voting experiences.
Marketing senior Marcel Mneimne said he knew the voting site at the MAC was removed and was upset by the decision, describing voting as a civic duty and a right.
He said he took one of the free transportation services to the courthouse after seeing a sign for it on campus. Although he has a car and could have voted without the service, he said he has friends who don’t have that privilege.
Mneimne said traveling off campus creates barriers for students without cars and people with disabilities who need accessible transportation. Though he believed those challenges could negatively affect student turnout, he said, he praised the services that are in place.
“The buses have been a great resource,” Mneimne said.
Mneimne said UTA should have provided a route to the polls, similar to its MavMover route to Walmart.
He said he believes the university’s responsibilities extend beyond education and should be helping students become active members of society, including making it easier for students to vote.
Mechanical engineering senior Obehi Ofeinmun said her friend drove her to the courthouse since she doesn’t have a car. She said she waited about eight minutes to cast her ballot, but it took more planning than in 2024, when she could walk to the MAC.
Without her friend, Ofeinmun said she would have considered walking, asking someone else for a ride or using one of the free transportation services to the polls. However, morning classes and a job limited her availability.
She said the removal of the MAC voting site could discourage students who are already on campus and do not want to add another trip to their day to vote.
Ofeinmun said UTA could expand and better advertise transportation efforts already organized by students.
Her determination to vote comes from being in a family of immigrants and wanting her younger sisters to have educational and career opportunities, she said.
Voting allows her to advocate for a future where they can attend college and build a future.
Walkable Arlington President Liam Crowley, along with two others, biked to the courthouse Oct. 23.
The bike ride was organized as part of Walkable Arlington’s Roll to the Polls event. Crowley, the event planner, said he had a feeling the MAC would not be available as a voting location for the midterms, so he already had intentions of voting at the courthouse.
While he hasn’t had any issues voting at the courthouse, Crowley said the MAC was a convenient location for him to vote in previous elections.
“There wasn’t much of a line. I showed them my ID. I voted. I kept on with my day,” he said.
Students board a van to be transported to a voting site Oct. 21 outside the University Center. The service, hosted by the Victory Coalition and UTA’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter, provided free transportation to help students get to the polls.
Arlington resident Jeannette Zimmerman, 40, said she waited around 20 minutes to vote, less than the 30-minute estimate she saw on the app.
She said she lives a mile or two from the courthouse and has voted there the past five or six years. This was the first election in which she saw a line to vote, she said.
Despite the wait, she was determined to vote. If the line had been too long, she said she would have driven to another polling location.
She praised election workers for clear communication and keeping the line moving in the past.
Having previously voted at the MAC, she said removing the location can create inconveniences, particularly for people with disabilities.
Alex Rittenhouse’s, sustainable urban design junior, first time voting was during the 2024 presidential election; she did not vote on campus. During the primaries last year, she did not use the MAC as a polling site again; instead, she went to the courthouse in Arlington.
Due to the wait times at the courthouse during the primaries, Rittenhouse said she planned to vote at the MAC during the Nov. 3 midterms this year. This was not an option that was afforded to her.
Rittenhouse said she knew she’d have to go off campus to vote, and although the courthouse isn’t too far, it would require a little more planning.
She said the convenience of the center’s location to students may have compelled more students to vote in the past, and that the voting site’s removal was unfortunate.
“I would go out and vote either way, even if the nearest voting site was an hour away, but a lot of students wouldn’t,” Rittenhouse said.
A yard sign is displayed Oct. 23 outside the Maverick Activities Center. The MAC was removed as a voting location for the midterm election.
Computer science sophomore Uchechukwu Anaghara walked 30 minutes to the courthouse on Oct. 25. He had initially planned to visit the MAC.
“I know in the previous years, it was an active site,” he said. “But I heard that it wasn’t, so I was like, ‘Where do I vote now?’”
Anaghara said he planned to vote earlier in the day, but getting out of bed was a challenge. He said he told himself, “I have to do it now because I’m not going to do it over the weekdays.”
That now-or-never mindset might deter other students who want to participate in this election, Anaghara said.
“It just makes it a little harder to work into your day,” he said.
Arlington resident Jazmin Gutierrez, 30, works as a teacher in Dallas. Due to the long wait times at polling locations near her in Arlington, she pushed voting off until the weekend.
“This whole week I kept saying ‘I’m going to vote’ and then I would check the wait times and it would be 45 minutes, 120 minutes,” she said. “When you’re getting off work at 6 o’clock, you don’t want to spend two hours waiting in the line.”
The East Library Recreation Center in Arlington is the voting site Gutierrez typically uses, she said, but it was unavailable during early voting. She said her next option would have been UTA, but that was also unavailable.
She said the reduction in voting sites can feel disheartening.
“Wanting to vote, yes, is there, but when you know that you’re going to have to dedicate an hour to standing in the line,” she said, “it’s frustrating.”
“It shouldn’t be this hard to be heard.”
@tay._.sansom dxc1733@mavs.uta.edu