Ever since he shook Barack Obama’s hand during the 2008 primaries, Montravias King knew he wanted to get involved in politics.
But when the senior at Elizabeth City State University submitted his name for a city council race this year, the Pasquotank County Board of Elections voted to bar him from running, saying King could not use his campus address to run for the seat.
After hearing about King’s plight earlier this month, Carrboro Mayor Mark Chilton and Chapel Hill Town Council member Lee Storrow offered King guidance on his campaign.
While still an undergraduate at UNC, Chilton became North Carolina’s youngest elected official when he won a seat on the Chapel Hill Town Council at age 21. Storrow was elected to the same council shortly after graduating from UNC in 2011.
Chilton said he hopes King is allowed to run.
“Realistically, if a student files to run for local office and is a poor candidate and doesn’t really know what he or she is talking about, the student won’t get votes anyway,” Chilton said. “What’s wrong with having this person be a choice on the ballot?”
Clare Barnett, a staff attorney with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice who represents King, points to two court cases that upheld the right of students to use their campus address to vote. She said current law states that the rules governing residency for voting also apply to running for local office.
“They don’t have any legal precedent to say that a dormitory can’t be a permanent address,” Barnett said. “Their rationale is that because you can only live in the dorms for nine months out of the year, that can’t be considered your permanent address.”
King said he has lived on campus since he started at ECSU in 2009 and has spent most summers living there. He has voted in Pasquotank County for four years using his campus address.
