Montinique Monroe/Getty Images
- A college student drove 20 hours from Washington DC to Fort Worth, Texas in order to vote after her mail-in ballot never arrived.
- Meredith Reilly, 20, drove nearly 1,400 miles with her friend, Zachary Houdek, also 20, after applying for absentee ballots in August but never hearing back, according to CNN.
- Reilly was ultimately cast her ballot at Tarrant County College’s Trinity River Campus in Fort Worth, one of the county’s 50 early voting centers, the Star Telegram reported.
- Visit Insider’s homepage for more stories.
A college student drove 20 hours from Washington DC to Fort Worth, Texas, in order to vote after her mail-in ballot never arrived.
Meredith Reilly, 20, drove nearly 1,400 miles with her friend, Zachary Houdek, also 20, after they both submitted applications for absentee ballots in August but hadn’t heard back, according to CNN.
Reilly had applied for an absentee ballot from the Tarrant County Elections Administration but never heard back, while Houdek had the same problem with his hometown elections office in Austin’s Travis County, the Star Telegram reported.
Houdek told CNN that they voted through absentee ballots in Texas from DC during the 2018 midterm elections without any problems but “this election has been so different, it’s been horrible.”
The pair left DC on Sunday afternoon in a rented Volkswagen Golf. They loaded up on caffeine, only stopping briefly to catch a few hours sleep in a motel in Tennessee, before arriving in Fort Worth on Monday afternoon, according to KTEM News.
Reilly told WFFA-TV: "Ever since I was little, I knew I would be able to vote in the 2020 presidential election. I did that math, so I was really excited to vote in a presidential election. It was really exciting.
"If a lot of individuals decide that their vote matters, then it comes together to make a bigger movement that could change people's lives drastically," she added.
Reilly was ultimately cast her ballot at Tarrant County College's Trinity River Campus in Fort Worth, one of the county's 5o early voting centers, the Star Telegram reported.
The youth vote in Texas has increased by 610% this year despite the limitations of COVID-19. More than 753,000 voters aged under 30 cast a ballot by Friday compared to 106,000 in 2016, during the same period, according to CIRCLE at Tufts University.