Confusion for Prairie View A&M students on the last day...

Thousands of student voter registrations at Prairie View A&M could have the wrong address listed, causing confusion on campus as to whether the registrations are valid.

The problem goes back to how students get their mail.

The university does not have individual mailboxes for students on campus. There is a single post office box for all students in the five university dormitories. So, getting students to list a specific mailing address on registration applications was difficult.

According to Waller County Elections Administrator Christy Eason, a group of officials at the university, the county and the local political parties agreed in 2016 to have students write down 700 or 100 University Drive as their residence when registering to vote. One is the address for the university, the other is the address for the campus bookstore.

In the March primary election, however, Eason noticed a problem: the 700 University Drive address puts students in the City Hall precinct, not the one on campus. The compromise from 2016 was sending voters to the wrong polling places.

"So, in this upcoming election, anyone who's registered at those addresses can vote on campus," Eason said. "But they'll have to fill out a change of address form so we can make sure they're sent to the right precinct in the future."

Waller County Democratic Club President and County Judge candidate Denise Mattox said she worried the statement cards will cause too much confusion.

"The change of address cards won't work. There's hundreds of students registered this way and that could mean long lines. It needs to be fixed," Mattox said.

Rumors were flying on Tuesday's registration deadline. A Facebook post claimed thousands of registrations were destroyed or rejected because of the address issue. Lisa Seger, the Democratic candidate for Texas House District 3 took to Twitter.

"Waller County - whose history of disenfranchising the student body at Prairie View A&M University is so legendary that its efforts were brought to the Supreme Court in 1979, is at it again," Seger tweeted. She said the statement of address forms are a barrier to discourage students from voting.

Eason acknowledged Waller County's "horrible history" regarding voting rights, but wanted to assure the public that she is not trying to disenfranchise anyone.

"We want to work together with the university on this," Eason said.

She said she has reached out to student groups on campus and is planning "change-of-address" drives between now and the election.

"This was done in good will, not to keep students from voting," Eason said.

More than 8,700 students are enrolled at the historically black university. The university saw a record number of freshman enroll this fall.

The address confusion did not discourage students from lining up to register to vote Tuesday afternoon. Tariah Shaw and Lauryn Williams are sophomores at Prairie View A&M. The two 19-year-olds were eager to cast their first ballots in November.

"It's important as black women that we let our opinions be heard," Shaw said.

The mail situation makes a lot of simple things difficult, Williams said, adding the first two weeks of the fall semester were chaotic as everyone's textbook orders arrived.

"It's not going to be easy to know where our voter registration cards are if they're all sent to the same place," Williams said.

The Houston Chronicle is participating in Electionland, a ProPublica project that will cover access to the ballot and problems that prevent people from exercising their right to vote during the 2018 election. This story is part of that project.

You can help us by signing up now.Text VOTE to 81380. You can also WhatsApp at us at +1 850 909-8683 or reach us through Facebook Messenger here: http://m.me/electionland

matt.dempsey@chron.com

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