Xfinity Center Selected As Advanced Polling Location For 2020 Election
The Maryland football program issued a unified statement in early June to address systemic racism and voter registration concerns following the killing of George Floyd and three months later, the school announced that the Xfinity Center has been selected as an advanced polling center for the upcoming 2020 presidential election.
The basketball arena will serve as one of eleven advanced polling centers within Prince George’s County from October 26 to November 2 from 7 A.M. to 8 P.M. "This may be the most significant competition ever to play out in our arena," said University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines. "Making it more convenient for voters and increasing turnout contributes to the cornerstone of our democracy. I'm extremely proud that our student-athletes took the lead in making this happen."
"We are honored to open the doors of XFINITY Center to the general public as an advanced polling location for the upcoming presidential election," said Director of Athletics Damon Evans. "This was one of the primary goals of our 'VoTerp Initiative,' and I am extremely proud of the committee members who brought this idea to life. Voting is fundamental to our human rights as American citizens and Maryland Athletics is humbled to play a role in the process."
Head coach Mike Locksley noted his team’s intent in June to make a community impact as they turned emotion into action. The statement also addressed the team’s focus to create a community service program where transportation will be provided to “help educate and promote voter registration.” The player-driven initiative by Maryland coincides with Locksley’s message that the best teams are player-driven teams as the program capitalizes on a chance for a societal impact.
“The first one to me was the leadership group came to me and they said ‘Coach, we want to come out unified," Locksley told reporters in June. "We always talk about team and family, well we don’t want 105 guys putting out their individual statements. But then they also talked about one of the solutions is utilizing the American right to vote, which I can tell you when I was 18 and 22 years old, I never voted and they all said one of the ways we can make a change is if we use the power of voting in our local communities, whether it’s voting for the sheriffs in our counties or the county legislators. And they wanted to be educated more on how to vote, how to find and do the research on who you’re voting for. Then they wanted to take it a step further and wanted to be a big part of the voters registration in some of the underserved communities that are near our campus, so close to DC and they want to go in and help get people that don’t normally vote to register to vote to make a change as well as help those that can’t get to voting polls or precincts transportation.”
