Feature photo by Hannah Carley
Story by Emma Burden and Hannah Carley
Evening
Entering the SportsCom voting location, Shane Reeves, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump supporters lined the street. It was immediately clear that the SportsCom had a higher turnout than Hobgood or Central. Workers turned the SportsCom basketball gym into a voting center, smelling heavily of chlorine from the lap pool down the hall.
Polling officer Beth Wright was in charge of the SportsCom today. Wright, a professor in MTSU’s College of Education, shared that the entire gym was full from 7 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., with a line out the door. At 4 p.m., over 1,500 Rutherford County residents had cast their vote at the SportsCom.
Within the chaos of SportsCom — loud cheers for first-time voters, a near-constant chatter and Chappell Roan’s “Hot to Go!” playing upstairs — four MTSU students cast their first vote in a presidential election. One of the students, Max McMurray, chose to cast his vote without wearing shoes.
“It was not what I expected,” McMurray said. “I thought it was just the presidents [on the ballot]. But there were more.”
Election Day at SportsCom seemed to move along swimmingly, but for some, their time at the polls turned into long phone calls and provisional ballots.
Wright explained that there have been many provisional ballots cast this year.
“It’s a big problem for students,” Wright said. Many students believe that they don’t need to be registered in Rutherford County to vote or think that they’re registered when they are not.
With 90 minutes until the polls closed, Hobgood Elementary was steady but slow at 5:30 p.m. Turnout was similar to their crowd at lunch.
Tyree Mosley, a seasoned polling machine operator, has volunteered for 10 years and expected larger numbers this election year. This year, the lower numbers created a smooth flow into and out of the polling grounds, he said.
“[This year] I actually changed my party. I was in the Democratic Party and I switched it over to Republican,” Mosley said, talking about his own experience at the polls this year. “I work the polls to serve my community, I’m doing my part.”
At 6:15 p.m., the Reeves and Harris supporters outside of SportsCom were long gone. In their place stood a second group of Trump supporters, braving the colder weather as the sun went down.
Though the polls were due to close in less than an hour, there was no line to vote.
“We’ve always had a line form around this time,” Wright said. “But not this year.”
The Associated Press called Tennessee for Trump at 7 p.m., right after the polls closed.
Morning and midday
As polls opened at 7 a.m., a short line of about 30 voters began filing into Central Magnet School, one of 30 voting locations in Rutherford County. This was the longest line of the day so far, including lunchtime.
Dressed in pajamas, work uniforms and athleisure, voters stood in line quietly, waiting for their turn in the voting booth. Voters breathed in the familiar smell of a high school hallway — pencil shavings, old books and the metallic odor of lockers.
Outside of Central Magnet, the grass was littered with polling signs. Central’s Latin Club stood on the corner of 1 Heart Ln., operating a student-run bake sale.
Sisters KatieMae and Kristen Bean cast their votes at Central Magnet this afternoon. Both frequent voters, the sisters were excited to cast their vote in the presidential election.
“There were three first-time voters just while we were in there,” KatieMae Bean said. “[I think] there’s been a significant increase, and that’s always good to see.”
At 1 p.m., Hobgood Elementary appeared to be much busier than Central Magnet, but inside, the polling place was almost silent. A poll worker noted that today had a “great turnout” of around 500 voters.
In a high school gym, voters dispersed between seven voting machines. Outside, heavy wind knocked over voting signs, and light rain gave way to humid, muggy heat.
“I was here [voting last election], and it [the line] was up and down these hallways,” Scott Proctor said, who voted at Hobgood Elementary this afternoon. “It was an hour plus to get in [last election], but today, I just walked right in. So, that leads me to believe in all the early voting; you can see it. It cannibalized the day of voting.”
Early voting saw 51 percent of registered voters in Rutherford County cast ballots for this election, according to Election Administrator Alan Farley.
Short lines and empty halls aren’t an uncommon polling experience in Tennessee, as the state ranks 45th in voter turnout, according to World Population Review. Almost half of Tennesseans, on average, choose not to participate on Election Day. Over 43.4 percent of qualified Tennessee voters abstained in the past three federal elections, according to the Tennessean.
During the 2020 election, voters broke participation records that dated back to 2008. Over 68 percent of voters cast during early voting, on Election Day or absentee by mail, according to the Secretary of State. The pandemic caused an uptick in voter participation while in-person voting numbers fell.
This article will be updated with evening data.
Emma Burden and Hannah Carley are reporters for MTSU Sidelines.
To contact the News Editor, email newseditor@mtsusidelines.com.
For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com, and follow us on Facebook at MTSU Sidelines and on X and Instagram at @mtsusidelines. Also, sign up for our weekly newsletter here.
