Election@Bard

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• Pavlina Tcherneva Writes Levy Policy Note on Election Outcome
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  Pavlina Tcherneva Writes Levy Policy Note on Election Outcome

  

  Pavlina Tcherneva. 
  

  Pavlina Tcherneva, president of the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College, professor of economics, and director of OSUN’s Economic Democracy Initiative, posted a policy note on the outcome of the US presidential election and how many Americans voted for progressive policies, such as state ballot measures to increase minimum wage and require paid sick leave, despite Donald Trump having won the presidential bid. She addresses how numerous issues, including economic concerns, wages, immigration policy, and reproductive health rights, among many other factors, affected the way voters responded, particularly in states that voted Republican. “All polls—whatever one’s feelings about their reliability—kept pointing to the same defining issue in this (as in every other) election: the economy,” writes Tcherneva. “Critical issues of democracy, abortion, and immigration filled the airwaves and political speeches, but the economy remained once again more powerful than any one of them.”
  

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  Post Date: 11-12-2024
  
• Election Day on Bard’s Campus Featured in Inside Higher Ed
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  Election Day on Bard’s Campus Featured in Inside Higher Ed

  

  Election@Bard, November 2023. Photo by Jonathan Asiedu ’24
  

  Bard College, now in its fifth year of having a consistent polling site on its Annandale campus, was featured in Inside Higher Ed (IHE) in a report about how campuses and faculty across the country are handling classes on Election Day. At least 86 colleges and universities have canceled classes to facilitate voting, according to Day on Democracy, an organization that helps students advocate for their institutions to give them Election Day off, IHE reports. Today, a group of professors at Bard are opening their classrooms for discussions about the importance of democracy, and are joining attendees for a walk to the campus polling site to support those who are voting. “Many faculty members see a fundamental link between higher education and democracy, that it’s a fundamental pillar of liberal education in the United States,” said Jonathan Becker, executive vice president of Bard College and director of the Center for Civic Engagement. “What more important act for an educator is [there than] to speak about the most fundamental democratic rights, which is the right to vote?”
  

  Read More in Inside Higher Ed
  

  
  Post Date: 11-05-2024
  
• A Poll to Call Our Own: The Bard Voting Story, New Short Film Premieres on November 4 at Bard College
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  A Poll to Call Our Own: The Bard Voting Story, New Short Film Premieres on November 4 at Bard College

  

  Still from A Poll to Call Our Own: The Bard Voting Story. Courtesy of Seamus Heady ’22
  

  On Monday, November 4, at 5 pm, Bard College will host a screening and discussion for the public premiere of the Open Society University Network’s (OSUN) documentary film, A Poll to Call Our Own: The Bard Voting Story. The screening will be followed by a discussion with key actors, including Bard alumni/ae Sarah deVeer ’17, Jonian Rafti ’15, Seamus Heady ’22 (producer/director), lawyer Yael Bromberg, Bard Vice President for Civic Engagement Erin Cannan, and Bard Vice President for Academic Affairs Jonathan Becker. The event will take place at the Weis Cinema in the Bertelsmann Campus Center. It will also be broadcast as a webinar. Register in advance for this webinar here.
  
  The short film A Poll to Call Our Own: The Bard Voting Story chronicles the quarter-century fight at Bard over student voting rights, a period during which Bard students and administrators, with the support of groups like the Andrew Goodman Foundation and the New York Civil Liberties Union, won four lawsuits—three state and one federal—to protect students’ right to vote locally and to secure a polling place on the Bard campus. Bard’s experience helped inspire New York State to pass a law in 2022 mandating polling places at or near college campuses that have 300 or more registered on-campus voters.
  
  The film was produced as an open educational resource for the course, Student Voting: Power, Politics and Race in the Fight for American Democracy. The course, which is supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and OSUN, is collaboratively taught by faculty from Bard, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (North Carolina A&T), Prairie View A&M University, and Tuskegee University. Students meet virtually weekly to discuss issues in the course, including case studies which explore histories of student voting at each institution. By the end of the project, there will be a film and written case study for each campus, chronicling their fight for student voting rights.
  
  A Poll to Call Our Own: The Bard Voting Story contains interviews with key players in the fight for a polling place, including current and former students, key administrators, and legal counsel, as well as archival footage of students being harassed at a local poll site and speaking before the Red Hook Town Board about the need for a polling place on campus. It is accompanied by a written case study.
  
  Director and producer Seamus Heady ’22 said: “Our film reveals the powers which have worked, often quietly, to stand between youth voters and the polls. Nobody goes out of their way to silence meaningless voices. It is my hope that youth everywhere, who may feel dubious about the power of their votes, take this film as an affirmation of the significant role they play in our democracy. Bard as an institution has committed significant resources to bring attention to local municipal injustice, which could otherwise go unnoticed. I believe all universities owe it to their students to do the same.”
  
  Bard College President Leon Botstein, who was a litigant in two of the cases, said: “This film illustrates Bard’s belief in the inextricable link between education and democracy. I am proud to have served as a litigant with Bard students and administrators in our successful campaign to secure a polling place on campus and to advocate for a law mandating polling places on college campuses in New York State with 300 or more registered voters. As trust in institutions and faith in democracy wanes in the United States, particularly amongst American youth, it is more important now than ever to fight for justice and change through securing for all citizens the right to vote.”
  
  Bard’s Vice President for Academic Affairs, Director of Bard’s Center for Civic Engagement, and Professor of Political Studies Jonathan Becker said: “The film covers many of the critical milestones of Bard’s long fight over student voting rights. It effectively captures how successive generations of Bard students mobilized with the support of the Bard administration and partnered with organizations like the Andrew Goodman Foundation and the New York Civil Liberties Union to fight for their democratic rights. It is a testament to the capacity of higher education institutions to serve as civic actors in an America whose democracy is increasingly under threat.”
  
  Bard student Sierra Ford ’26, who is the head of Election@Bard and an Andrew Goodman Ambassador, said: “It is incredible to be a part of a legacy of rich voter advocacy at Bard. What a privilege it has been to join my peers, administration, and mentors in realizing an electorally engaged community.”
  
  Bard Vice President for Civic Engagement Erin Cannan said: “The Bard student voting story is a reminder to all of us that fair elections require vigilance and engagement of young people. And that the fear of ‘over enfranchising’ students cannot be a reason for election officials to act illegally. This work is never finished.”
  
  Assistant Producer at OSUN Maria Pankova said: “Working on this case study was an opportunity for me to learn more about Bard College’s history and the culture of civic engagement on campus. As a Bard graduate, I felt closer to my alma mater, knowing the full extent of voting activism taking place there and administration advocacy for students’ rights.”
  

  Watch the film
  

  
  Post Date: 10-31-2024
  
• Democracy Day Panel: Faculty and Organizers Discuss Connections Between Electoral Justice and Authoritarian Threats in the US and Overseas
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  Democracy Day Panel: Faculty and Organizers Discuss Connections Between Electoral Justice and Authoritarian Threats in the US and Overseas

  

  During recent Language and Thinking program events, first-year students packed the Sosnoff Theater to listen to a vibrant panel discussion on “The Fight for Democracy, Locally, Nationally, and Globally” with faculty, staff, alumni/ae, and representatives from the nonprofit and philanthropic arenas. The panel was a part of Bard’s first ever Democracy Day, and was followed by a series of opportunities for students to volunteer and participate in workshops.
  
  Attendees heard about the impacts of successful student and alumni/ae civic engagement projects and took in commentary on current challenges to democratic practice, ranging from the struggle for student voter access to the systemic silencing of marginalized voices and attempts by government to hollow out important institutions. The panelists noted that they were expressing their personal views and not those of their institutions. 
  
  Erin Cannan, Vice President for Civic Engagement at Bard, moderated the panel of organizers and faculty, while Bard alumni inspired first-years with their community leadership stories, including Zarlasht Sarmast, who sponsors educational opportunities for hundreds of women in Afghanistan; Mariel Fiori, editor-in-chief of La Voz, the only Spanish language magazine in the Mid-Hudson Valley, serving 100,000+ readers; and Dariel Vasquez, who launched Brothers@, originally Brothers@Bard, a national mentor program focused on Black male achievement 
  
  Sierra Ford ‘26, lead student intern at Election@Bard, opened the discussion highlighting obstacles that youth organizers and voters face, noting that US youth voter turnout in 2022 was “abysmally low” at 23%.  Panelists then explored challenges to democracy in the United States and what lessons could be learned from the rise and fight against authoritarianism across the globe. ⁠
  
  Power at the Polls
  
  Brianna Cea, Executive Director of GenVote, a nonprofit youth-led movement that fights for young people’s right to vote, spoke to her own experience as a student at SUNY Binghamton, where she experienced firsthand the impact of New York’s archaic voter registration rules during the 2016 presidential election. At the polls, she was disappointed to find that she was not on the voter rolls and therefore could not vote. GenVote now seeks to rectify such obstacles by providing a “political home for direct action and campaigns that prioritize electoral justice,” said Cea. 
  
  Cea cited a Brennan Center Voting Rights Round-up that reports restrictive voting laws were being enacted in 27 states this fall, in an attempt to dissuade youth and student voters from casting a ballot. “They are doing this because they know that our generation, when we actually unleash our political power at the polls and elsewhere, we win…They understand democracy matters and they are trying to rig the system.”
  
  Echoing Cea, Jonathan Becker, Executive Vice President of Bard College and Director of the Center for Civic Engagement, said that “Bard students had systematically been deprived of the right to vote.” Becker explained that Bard students and faculty began the fight for the right to vote locally more than 25 years ago. Since 2014, the hard work done by undergraduate students from Election@Bard and the Center for Civic Engagement led to Bard College finally securing a permanent campus polling site in 2022, he said.
  
  Other Issues Beyond Voting
  
  Becker underlined how voting is but one element of democracy and how Bard’s work around the globe demonstrates how a growing cohort of empowered authoritarian leaders, be it in places like Russia or Hungary, who attack institutions that help protect and preserve democracy, use the same form of authoritarian playbook. Their actions include not just undermining elections, but also eroding checks and balances, eroding institutions such as courts, nonprofits, and universities, quashing dissent, and scapegoating marginalized communities. He noted the United States is faced with many of these same threats.
  
  Elmira Bayrasli, Director of the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program in New York City⁠, offered a historical perspective on the US model of democracy, which she said has become increasingly undermined by neoliberalism. Since the 1990s, an over-emphasis on growth economies and privatization led to profoundly anti-democratic policies, she said. “Instead of democracy, what we were really pushing was capitalism and free markets…at the expense of civil liberties and human rights,” said Bayrasli. 
  
  Bayrasli said that in the current climate, “We are having very performative conversations about how to get back to democracy” with many discussions about voting but not enough about unfair economic policies. To truly support democracy, citizens must work to address the “disproportionate burden left for the middle and lower classes.” 
  
  Assaults on Higher Education
  
  Maria Sachiko Cecire, founding director of Bard’s Center for Experimental Humanities, explained that her work as a Higher Learning Program Officer at the Mellon Foundation, where she focuses on the humanities, higher education, and social justice, allows her to “support more complete and accurate narratives of the human experience” and seeks to contribute to “a society that honors everyone,” she said.
  
  Cecire said that more than 127 proposed legislative gag orders on higher education across the US (23 passed) are restricting freedom to learn and teach, a critical threat to democracy. She said the current pitched battles against ethnic, gender, and sexuality studies and against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives dangerously restrict whose stories are being told and who has access to higher education. Learning about these struggles and speaking out about them in public makes a difference, she said.
  
  In a follow up Q&A, one student asked about the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. Becker pointed out that the initiative is an example of authoritarian policymaking and that the Heritage Foundation is linked with the Danube Institute in Hungary, from which many of the same conservative ideas have emerged. This is part of a broader systemic assault on institutions, including colleges and universities, said Becker. As an example, he cited New College of Florida, which has been under attack by state authorities for a year and a half, and where, recently hundreds of books on race, gender, and religion had literally been thrown out, illustrating Cecire’s earlier point about institutional threats. Additionally, said Becker, New College of Florida trustee Chris Rufo, who had studied so-called illiberal democracy in Hungary last spring, celebrated the destruction of the books. 
       
  Continued Engagement in the Democratic Process
  
  A faculty member asked a question about voting in light of the war in Gaza, Israel’s repeated violations of international humanitarian law, and the failure of the US to curb such actions. Bayrasli suggested that reengaging with campaign finance reform was one way to tackle this issue. Cea cited the Uncommitted movement as one way voters could apply pressure to influence US elections and thereby policy in Israel/Palestine. She also noted that there are many issues critical to young people on the ballot and a range of elected offices that are a part of the election. Becker spoke about Bard’s deep commitment to education at Al Quds Bard College in Palestine but also noted “there is still an election and choices are being made.” He encouraged students to continue to engage in the democratic process as a means of representing their communities on this and other issues.
  
  Post Date: 10-25-2024
  
• Jonathan Becker Talks to Inside Higher Ed about Bard’s On-Campus Polling Site
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  Jonathan Becker Talks to Inside Higher Ed about Bard’s On-Campus Polling Site

  

  Photo by Jonathan Asiedu ’24
  

  Voting-access advocates have long been concerned about the removal of campus polling places. Inside Higher Ed (IHE) reports on the issue and news that only five weeks from the 2024 election, Purdue University students and staff will not be able to vote on campus on Election Day for the first time in four presidential elections. Speaking with IHE, Jonathan Becker, executive vice president, vice president for academic affairs, and director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College, emphasized the importance of “predictability” in the voting process. Bard is now in its fifth year of having a consistent polling site on campus. Becker said that this predictability has been an asset for the local board of elections, which has improved the efficiency with which they run a voting site, as well as for the students and community members who have the benefit of going to the same place to vote from one election to the next. After two decades of fighting for a polling place on Bard’s campus, the College successfully advocated for on-campus voting to be enshrined into law in New York. In 2022, state legislation was passed that mandates polling places on college campuses with 300 or more registered voters.
  
  Further reading:
  Bard College Secures Fully Functioning On-Campus Polling Site for 2022 General Election
  

  Read more on Insider Higher Ed
  

  
  Post Date: 10-07-2024
  
• Bard College Student Sierra Ford ’26 Recognized on 2024 ALL IN Student Voting Honor Roll
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  Bard College Student Sierra Ford ’26 Recognized on 2024 ALL IN Student Voting Honor Roll

  

  Sierra Ford ’26.
  

  Bard College sophomore Sierra Ford has been named to the 2024 ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge Student Voting Honor Roll. Ford, leader of the College’s student voting initiative Election@Bard, joins a group of 137 students recognized for their voter registration, education, and turnout efforts during the 2023 elections, which featured critical ballot measures and local and state races. ALL IN awards college students doing outstanding work to advance nonpartisan democratic engagement at participating campuses. “Whether it’s a presidential election year or one with critical state and local races on the ballot, students have a powerful role to play in fostering active and engaged campuses and getting their peers to participate in our democracy,” said Jennifer Domagal-Goldman, executive director of ALL IN.
  

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  Post Date: 04-24-2024
  
• A New York Law Mandates Campus Polling Sites. Why Are There Still So Few?
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  A New York Law Mandates Campus Polling Sites. Why Are There Still So Few?

  

  Photo by Jonathan Asiedu ’24
  

  Jonathan Becker, vice president for academic affairs and director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard, spoke with Inside Higher Ed about New York State’s new law requiring campus polling sites. Becker is urging college and university leaders to take action before the March 15 deadline to establish sites before the next election. “Colleges and universities talk about [how] education is part of developing citizens and democracy. Well, there’s no more fundamental right than the right to vote,” Becker says. “If colleges and universities remain silent [about] a law providing the opportunity for students to vote more easily, then they’re not fulfilling their mission.”
  

  Read More on Inside Higher Ed
  

  
  Post Date: 03-06-2024
  
• Opinion: “New York Mandated On-campus Voting, Which Hasn’t Happened” Writes Jonathan Becker in the Times Union
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  Opinion: “New York Mandated On-campus Voting, Which Hasn’t Happened” Writes Jonathan Becker in the Times Union

  

  Photo by Joseph Nartey ’26
  

  Bard College Vice President for Academic Affairs, Professor of Politics, and Director of the Bard Center for Civic Engagement (CCE) Jonathan Becker urges the state, county boards of election, and college leaders to act now to give students ballot access for the impending November 2024 elections. In 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul passed legislation that mandates polling places on college campuses with 300 or more registered voters, yet a recent study released by CCE shows a negligible change in on-campus polling sites between the November 2022 elections and the November 2023 elections. “With the March 15 deadline for poll site assignments for this fall’s national election, the time is now to make the law’s promise a reality,” he writes in a commentary for the Times Union. He advocates for action on three levels—county boards of election should enforce the law, the state should identify means of enforcing the law, and leaders at colleges must demonstrate leadership by promoting student voter registration and, where the 300-registrant threshold is met, demanding a polling place on campus or in a suitable adjacent facility. “By acting together, we can empower youth, strengthen our democracy, and realize the promise of both this innovative New York state law and the 26th Amendment,” writes Becker.
  
  Further reading:
  College Leaders Urged to Act on Campus Voting Sites
  

  Read in the Times Union
  

  
  Post Date: 02-29-2024
  
• College Leaders Urged to Act on Campus Voting Sites
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  College Leaders Urged to Act on Campus Voting Sites

  

  A letter sent today to higher education leaders across New York State calls on them to help fulfill the promise of 2022 legislation designed to promote poll sites on college campuses across New York State. It urges them to take concrete steps prior to the March 15 State deadline for county Boards of Election to designate poll sites for the 2024 federal elections to ensure compliance with the 2022 law. The letter was sent by Jonathan Becker, Bard College Vice President for Academic Affairs, Professor of Politics, and Director of the Bard Center for Civic Engagement in cooperation with youth and voting rights advocates, including: the Andrew Goodman Foundation, Brooklyn Voters Alliance, Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College, Citizens Union, Democracy Matters, GenVote, NYPIRG, NYVote/Next Generation Politics, Stand Up America, Partners for Campus-Community Engagement, and Vote Early New York.
  
  In April of 2022, New York State Governor Kathy Hochul (D), approved budgetary legislation that contained several pro-voting measures, including one that mandates poll sites on college campuses in New York with more than 300 registered voters. The legislation was hailed by voting rights activists who hoped it would enhance youth voter turnout and halt discriminatory practices directed at college-age voters by county Boards of Election.
  
  Unfortunately, as two recent studies show, state and local election administrators have not adequately prioritized or fully implemented this critical voter protection legislation: the vast majority of colleges in New York state do not have on-campus poll sites and there has been almost no change since the passage of this legislation.
  
  A team of Rutgers Law School clinical students, under the supervision of Prof. Yael Bromberg, Esq., surveyed Boards of Election about the availability of on-campus poll sites across New York State before and after the new mandate. The study found only a minor increase (2.2%) in the presence of on-campus poll sites between the 2018 and 2022 elections, when the law came into effect.
  
  Results of a follow-up study released today by the Bard College Center for Civic Engagement, conducted after the 2023 elections, also demonstrated little progress. The study, which involved surveys of Boards of Election and college administrators, found negligible change in on-campus poll sites from the period between the November 2022 elections and the November 2023 elections, an interval during which for the first time the law mandating poll sites on college campus would be in effect for the annual March 15 State deadline for assigning polling places. It found that since the legislation mandating poll sites has gone into effect, only three campuses could be identified that have added poll sites: Hostos Community College and Brooklyn College, which are part of the CUNY system, and Vassar College in Dutchess County, which only gained a poll site after litigation was initiated by a faculty member and supported by the League of Women Voters. The Madison County Board of Elections indicated that it is considering adding poll sites to Colgate University and SUNY Morrisville this round of poll assignments. In all, among the 65 private institutions who have more than 1,000 undergraduates enrolled, only fifteen institutions, or 25%, have on-campus poll sites. The four-year public institutions surveyed with more than 1,000 students have better rates at just under 50% for regular or early voting. Community Colleges which have on-campus residences have very low rates, at around 16%, though the lower density of residents helps explain the outcome. In all, 38% of public institutions surveyed have polling sites on campus.
  
  The results of these studies have led to this call to action. According to Bromberg, a voting rights attorney and lecturer at Rutgers Law School who is a leading national scholar of the 26th Amendment, “Much work remains to be done on the state level to ensure implementation, including the development of guidelines and best practices for college administrators and boards of elections, and the creation of a list of colleges covered by the law. Yet, the negligible increase of the availability of on-campus poll sites suggests that even basic education and awareness raising about the new mandate is necessary.”
  
  Jonathan Becker’s letter calls on college leaders to take action in four steps: 1) promote voter registration amongst students prior to the March 15 deadline; 2) reach out to student groups involved in voter registration, advocacy and related civic engagement efforts to encourage them to provide peer-led voter registration efforts in time for the March 15 deadline; 3) identify suitable poll sites on campus; 4) Consult with local Boards of Election to determine if there are 300 or more locally registered voters (students, faculty, and staff) residing on campus. The letter also asks that in cases where there are fewer than 300 registered voters on campus, institutional leaders encourage Boards of Election to, nonetheless, allow them to host a poll site on campus where feasible. 
  
  Becker said: “The Bard and Rutgers studies demonstrate that there is much work to do to meet the deadline in time for the federal elections this fall. Our letter asks college leaders to demonstrate that their commitment to civic engagement is not simply rhetorical. We have a responsibility to support student voting. American colleges consistently underline the link between education and citizenship, and there is no more important role of citizenship than to exercise the foundational right of voting.” Becker’s note to college leaders concludes: “Only by acting together can we realize the promise of the 2022 law and, more broadly, the 26^th Amendment.”
  
  "Despite significant progress at the state level modernizing New York elections, students continue to face unique access barriers that can frustrate their political participation" said Jarret Berg, Co-Founder and Voting Rights Counsel at Vote Early New York. "All stakeholders have a proactive role to play to ensure the voting process is clear and convenient for citizens who may be voting for the first time in 2024, from election officials tasked with designating and staffing poll sites on campuses, to the deans and administrators who host the polls and facilitate timely registration and ballot access, to the galaxy of campus groups who engage and mobilize their peers around civics."
  
  Generation Vote, which is devoted to tearing down barriers that prevent young people from participating in democracy stated:  "As the 2024 Presidential Election approaches, Generation Vote urgently calls upon colleges, universities, and the New York State Board of Elections to follow the law and identify eligible campuses for on-campus poll sites. Despite recent legislation mandating poll sites on campuses with over 300 registered voters, it is clear that there is more work to be done to make poll sites accessible for students and faculty members across New York State. In the lead-up to one of the most historic elections of our lifetime, we urge institutions of higher education and the State Board of Elections to proactively provide guidance and transparency as to the determination process for which campuses should be receiving on campus poll sites."
  

  Download the Study as PDF

  
  Post Date: 02-16-2024