North Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Roy Cooper told MSNOW that Republican elections officials in his state “removed” an early-voting site from the campus of a historically Black university — a claim that omits context about past polling sites at the school.
Cooper is the Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-NC, who isn’t seeking reelection. Cooper faces Republican Michael Whatley in a race that political analysts believe could help determine party control of the U.S. Senate. Green Party candidate Michael Dublin and Libertarian Shannon Bray are also running for the seat.
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In a recent interview with MSNOW, Cooper said North Carolina elections officials are restricting voting across the state.
“A lot of people in North Carolina, particularly on college campuses, are having an ‘I’ll show you’ attitude. ‘You're not going to take our vote away. We'll show you,’” Cooper said in a clip that his campaign posted to social media on Aug. 26.
“I went to North Carolina A&T State University, the largest HBCU in North Carolina. They removed that ballot box from their campus, but the students are marching to the nearest polling place and they're spreading the word that it's really important for them to get out and vote in this election because our country needs a course correction,” he said.
Did officials really “remove” a polling site from North Carolina A&T’s campus?
Not exactly.
The university had an early-voting site in 2024 and isn’t hosting one this year. So for juniors and seniors who remember being able to vote on campus two years ago, it could feel like they’ve lost a voting site.
However, Cooper omitted key context: The campus has never hosted an early-voting site in a midterm election like the 2026 contest — and it wasn’t slated to have one this year, so his use of the word “remove” could be misleading.
How early voting sites are chosen
In North Carolina, the state’s 100 county elections boards have the first say in setting early-voting site locations. If a county’s five-member board votes unanimously to adopt an early voting plan, that plan is set for the election.
If a county board’s decision isn’t unanimous, then the North Carolina State Board of Elections must make the final decision on how the county should handle early voting. This year, 80 counties adopted plans unanimously and 20 counties couldn’t reach unanimity.
Every county elections board, as well as the state board, has a Republican majority due to a 2024 law taking power away from Democratic Gov. Josh Stein and shifting it to the GOP instead. In those 20 disputed counties, Democrats opposed Republicans’ proposals to cut college campus voting access, to eliminate polling places in areas with large Black populations, or to close the polls on days that data shows Black voters tend to favor.
Guilford County — home to North Carolina A&T State University, the largest public and four-year HBCU in the nation — was among the counties that needed the state elections board to approve its final early-voting plan due to a partisan dispute.
The Republicans on Guilford’s elections board chose not to include an early voting site on North Carolina A&T’s campus, while the Democrats advocated for adding a site there.
During an Aug. 20 hearing, the state elections board approved an early voting plan for Guilford County that didn’t include a site at any of the local colleges or universities.
Critics of the county’s early voting plan say the lack of an early voting site unfairly targets young Black voters, who overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates. Critics allege that the changes are intended to benefit Republicans in a swing state where many races are decided by close margins.
“This is calculated," NCA&T student Olu Rouse told WRAL in an interview earlier this year. "This is a strategy, and it's actively trying to suppress our votes."
History of the site
Guilford County has never held an early voting site at North Carolina A&T or any college campus during a midterm election, said Charlie Collicutt, Guilford’s elections director. Collicutt provided PolitiFact with data showing Guilford County’s use of college campuses for early voting sites through the years.
Guilford County first opened an early voting site at North Carolina A&T during the 2004 presidential election, and added UNG-Greensboro as an early voting site in 2012. The county has utilized both North Carolina A&T and UNC-Greensboro during each presidential election since 2012, Collicutt said.
Asked about Cooper’s comments, Collicutt said: “‘Remove’ isn’t the right word. Maybe it’s semantics, but ‘not chosen’ is more accurate.”
In a statement to PolitiFact, the Cooper campaign noted that college students say they need the sites on campus, because of scheduling conflicts or a lack of transportation options. A North Carolina A&T student was part of an unsuccessful lawsuit that sought to secure early voting sites at three college campuses for North Carolina’s March primary elections.
More broadly, Democrats have accused the GOP-majority elections boards of attempting to suppress Black voters by limiting poll access, particularly by eliminating early voting opportunities on Sundays in some counties. Republicans who support those changes say it helps county boards that struggle to staff early-voting sites on weekends. The state is offering more total hours of early voting on the whole.
“Roy believes voting is a fundamental right and that efforts that make it harder to vote are wrong,” Cooper’s campaign told PolitiFact in a statement, adding: “The newly reconstituted and Republican-dominated State Board of Elections has waged a campaign to silence North Carolinians at the ballot box but Roy will continue fighting to protect the right to vote as our next Senator.”
Our ruling
Cooper said North Carolina election officials “removed” an early voting site from North Carolina A&T State University.
The elections director for North Carolina A&T’s county said “removed” is not the right word.
The historically Black university had an early voting site for the 2024 general election and will not host one during this year’s midterm elections. However, county election officials say that’s not unusual: Colleges and universities in Guilford County have never hosted early voting sites during midterms.
Cooper’s statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.