Liberty buses to make 120 trips to voting precinct

Liberty University buses today are scheduled to make more than 120 trips to the voting precinct at Heritage Elementary School as part of the college’s plans for Election Day.

The precinct’s roll closed with 4,731 voters last month, more than double its previous number after Liberty Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. made an unprecedented call for students to vote.

To accommodate its more than 4,000 students who

registered to vote in the campaign, plus about 2,000 who already were registered, Liberty today is canceling most classes, rerouting buses to the polls and hosting a dozen different events.

The school is providing transportation only to the elementary school, although many of its students who live off-campus are registered to vote at several other polling places in the area.

The buses will make their first stop at Heritage Elementary at about 7:30 a.m., starting out with a bus every five to 10 minutes, said Richard Martin, director of financial analysis at LU.

By 8:45 a.m. and lasting through 5 p.m., 12 buses an hour are scheduled to arrive at the precinct — one every five minutes. Between 5 and 8 p.m., only three to five buses an hour will stop at the precinct.

“We’ll wrap up and wrap down based on what we see,” Martin said. He hopes the schedule will help prevent too many students from arriving before and after the usual workday, when the precinct may be busiest.

He estimates that about 2,000 to 3,000 students may take the buses, but the operation is planned to handle full capacity.

Martin said anyone near the university is welcome to take the buses for free — but they only go from campus to the elementary school and back, with no stops in between.

The buses are scheduled to drop students off behind the elementary school’s cafeteria.

But a lack of parking at the school may force the buses to instead drop off and pick up from a bus stop on Leesville Road, Martin said.

He said students who drive to the polls are being encouraged to park at the neighboring Heritage High School to alleviate that problem. 

Heritage Elementary will be staffed with 18 poll workers, up from eight in the last presidential election.

The school will be equipped with three computer-screen voting machines — up from two last election. As of Monday afternoon, the precinct was equipped with five voting-privacy booths for marking paper ballots, which will be scanned and counted electronically.

Larry Provost, Liberty’s director of commuter affairs, said the school hopes that a large percentage of its students get out to vote and also to enjoy the school’s other planned activities, from karaoke and movies to an indoor pool party.

The night will wrap up with an election watch party at the Vines Center, complete with live music, food, games and prizes.

“We’ve got events going on all day on campus,” Provost said. “I think students are really looking forward to the opportunity to vote. And they like having classes off, too.”