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• 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.
  

  Learn More
  

  
  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
  
• Bard Center for Civic Engagement Prepares Report on Poll Sites on College Campuses
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  Bard Center for Civic Engagement Prepares Report on Poll Sites on College Campuses

  

  “Little Has Changed: Poll Sites on College Campuses in New York State
  since the 2022 College Poll Mandate”
  
  A Report Prepared by the Bard Center for Civic Engagement[1]

  
  February 16, 2024

  
  New York State Context
  
  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.
  
  The need for legislation was great. Since the passage of the 26^th Amendment in 1971, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 and outlawed age discrimination in access to the ballot, Boards of Election across the country, including in New York State, have targeted college students, imposing onerous residency requirements, making discriminatory rules concerning voting addresses, and making poll sites inaccessible. Students have been discriminated against and/or intimidated across the State at both public and private institutions, from SUNY campuses in Stony Brook and New Paltz to private institutions like Marist and Skidmore.
  
  At Bard College in Dutchess County, students, faculty and administrators, led by the Bard Center for Civic Engagement and a student group, Election@Bard, have engaged in a quarter-century battle to ensure student voting rights, including four successful Federal and State lawsuits. The 2022 legislation was in part a result of the tumult at Bard and the egregious actions of the Dutchess County Board of Elections as outlined in two lawsuits filed in 2020 and 2021 to help bring a poll site to the Bard Campus.[2]
  
  National Context: Youth Voting
  
  The need to focus on youth voting remains acute. Despite some progress in recent years, the youth vote lags behind other demographics. While voting among 18-24 year-olds reached 51.8% in the 2020 elections, a jump from 43% in 2016, it remained more than 10% lower than among 25-44 year-olds and 20% lower than 45 to 65 year-olds. In the 2022 midterms, only 30% of 18-24 year-olds voted, nearly 15 points less than 25-44 year-olds and more than 35% less than those 65 and over. Registration numbers also lag: in 2022, a mere 52% of 18-24 year-olds registered to vote, 25% less than those 65 and older. Among the top reasons cited by 18-24 year-olds for not voting in 2022 is that they were “too busy,” had “conflicting work,” and/or that voting clashed with their “school schedule” (13.5%), or that they were “out of town” (28.4%).
  
  While many students vote absentee, this remains challenging for young people, as it requires them to take many steps in a convoluted process that is becoming more difficult as many states impose new restrictions. Moreover, an increasing number of states are imposing barriers to student voting.
  
  Poll Sites on College Campuses: The Bard Study
  
  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 Professor Yael Bromberg, Esq., a leading national scholar of the 26th Amendment, and a team of students from the Rutgers International Human Rights Clinic, surveyed Boards of Election about the availability of on-campus poll sites at colleges across New York State, before and after the new mandate.[3] The results were not promising, indicating that there had only been 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. (The law allowed for reassignments of poll sites after the State’s annual March 15 deadline for poll site designation.)
  
  A study by the Bard Center for Civic Engagement conducted in late 2023 and early 2024 yielded similar results. The study focused on colleges with more than 1,000 undergraduate students and entailed three overlapping methods of determining whether campuses maintained and/or added poll sites: a survey of college administrators, a survey of Boards of Election, and cross-checking poll site addresses provided by Boards of Election. The need to have overlapping methodologies was rooted in the difficulties experienced in the attempt to obtain answers from county Boards of Election. Many do not have information on poll site locations on their websites, and those that do often do not indicate if the poll sites are on a college campus. Calls to Boards of Election often went unanswered. When interviewers did speak to Board representatives and requested basic public information, such as whether a poll site is situated on a college campus, answers were often withheld until a Freedom of Information Act request was filed. Even then, Freedom of Information Act requests often went unanswered.
  
  The study found that there was negligible change 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 poll sites. In that time, the study identified only three instances in which public and private colleges campuses added poll sites: Hostos Community College and Brooklyn College, which are part of the CUNY system, and Vassar College in Dutchess County. However, the CUNY advancement might be more due a system initiative to promote voting and early voting sites than the new law. Moreover, Vassar only gained a poll site after litigation was initiated by a faculty member and supported by the League of Women Voters. This underlines the challenges and need for a more systemic response and institutional response. It should also be noted that one institution which had a poll site, St. Francis College in Brooklyn, has moved and its new campus does not yet have a poll site. Another, Keuka College, was offered an on-campus poll site according to Board of Elections officials, but demurred due to a perceived lack of appropriate space. 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.
  
  The overall picture at college campuses remains bleak. Amongst 64 private institutions surveyed, only 25% have poll sites. If we lower the student population among private institutions to those with more than 600 undergraduates, the percentage of institutions with poll sites drops to only 22%. 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 that have on-campus residences have very low rates, at around 16%, though the lower density of residents helps explain this. In all, 38% of public institutions surveyed have polling sites on campus. (For further information on the individual institutions surveyed, see Appendix I and II and III).
  
  Next Steps
  
  The situation suggests that further intervention is needed. The State should consider further modifications to the legislation to ensure greater compliance. A coalition of voting rights and good governance groups under the banner of Let NY Vote is engaging with this issue. One area of focus needs to be county Boards of Election: if it is onerous to obtain information as simple as whether a public poll site is situated on a college campus, it is well-nigh impossible to learn whether there are 300 or more registered voters on a college campus.
  
  As a part of an educational institution, the Bard College Center for Civic Engagement is reaching out to academic leaders across the State to intervene. Specifically, with the March 15 deadline for determining poll sites in New York State fast approaching, it is calling on the leadership of higher education institutions to engage with local Boards of Election to determine whether their campuses are eligible for a poll site. A quick checklist of actionable items includes: 1) promoting student voter registration prior to the March 15 deadline; 2) reaching out to student groups involved in voter registration, advocacy and related civic engagement efforts to encourage them to begin peer-led voter registration efforts prior to the March 15 deadline; 3) identifying suitable poll sites on campus; and 4) consulting with local Boards of Election to determine if there are 300 or more locally registered voters (students, faculty, and staff) residing on campus. In cases where there are fewer than 300 registered voters on campus, Bard is still encourages institutions to host a poll site on campus where feasible, in the hope that it will inspire higher turnout for on-campus voters. 
  
  Registering students to vote and encouraging poll sites on campus are among the most important things colleges can do in addressing this issue, but they are not the only things. We also encourage colleges to reach out to such as the Andrew Goodman Foundation, Partners for Campus-Community Engagement, and the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge to help expand your outreach and engagement efforts on this important issue. Only through such steps are we going to realize the promise of the 2022 law and, more broadly, the 26^th Amendment.
  
  For further information, go to: https://cce.bard.edu or email [email protected].
  
  
  
   

  Appendix I: Private Institutions

  
  List of private institutions which had an on-campus poll site in 2023:

  Bard College
  Canisius University
  Cornell University
  Iona University (only for early voting)
  Ithaca College
  Le Moyne College
  Manhattan College
  Marymount Manhattan College
  New York University
  Roberts Wesleyan University
  Rochester Institute of Technology
  Skidmore College
  Syracuse University
  The New School
  Vassar College
  Yeshiva University

  List of private institutions which did not have an on-campus poll site in 2023:

  Adelphi University
  Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences
  Alfred University
  Barnard College
  Clarkson University
  Colgate University
  Columbia College
  College of Mount Saint Vincent
  D’Youville University
  Daemen University
  Dominican University New York
  Fordham University
  Hamilton College
  Hartwick College
  Hobart and William Smith Colleges
  Hofstra University
  Keuka College
  Long Island University
  Manhattanville University
  Marist College
  Mercy University
  Molloy University
  Mount Saint Mary College
  Nazareth University
  New York Institute of Technology (NYIT)
  Niagara University
  Pace University
  Pratt Institute
  Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
  Russell Sage College
  Sarah Lawrence College
  Siena College
  St. Bonaventure University
  St. John Fisher University
  St. John’s University
  St. Joseph’s University, New York
  St. Lawrence University
  St. Thomas Aquinas College
  The Belanger School of Nursing
  The College of Saint Rose
  The Culinary Institute of America
  Touro University
  Trocaire College
  Union College
  University of Rochester
  Utica University
  Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology
  Wagner College

  Appendix II

  
  List of four-year public institutions which had an on-campus poll site in 2023:

  Baruch College
  Binghamton University
  Brooklyn College
  City College, Harlem
  Fashion Institute of Technology
  John Jay College of Criminal Justice
  Medgar Evers College
  New York City College of Technology at MetroTech
  NYS College of Human Ecology at Cornell
  Queens College
  Stony Brook University
  SUNY at Cortland
  SUNY at Geneseo
  SUNY at New Paltz
  SUNY at Oswego
  SUNY at Plattsburgh
  SUNY at Purchase
  University at Albany
  York College

  
  List of four-year public institutions which did not have an on-campus poll site in 2023:

  Alfred State College
  Buffalo State University
  College of Staten Island
  Lehman College
  SUNY at Brockport
  SUNY at Canton
  SUNY at Cobleskill
  SUNY at Delhi
  SUNY at Farmingdale
  SUNY at Fredonia
  SUNY at Morrisville
  SUNY at Old Westbury
  SUNY at Oneonta
  SUNY at Potsdam
  SUNY Maritime College
  SUNY of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University
  SUNY Polytechnic Institute, Marcy
  United States Merchant Marine Academy
  United States Military Academy
  University at Buffalo

  Appendix III. Public Institutions

  
  List of Community Colleges which had an on-campus poll site in 2023:
  
  Genesee Community College
  Hostos Community College
  Mohawk Valley Community College
  
  List of Community Colleges which did not have an on-campus poll site in 2023:

  Adirondack Community College
  Broome Community College
  Cayuga County Community College
  Corning Community College
  Duchess Community College
  Finger Lakes Community College
  Fulton-Montgomery Community College
  Herkimer County Community College
  Jamestown Community College
  Jefferson Community College
  Monroe Community College
  Niagara County Community College
  North Country Community College
  Onondaga Community College
  Sullivan County Community College
  Tompkins Cortland Community College

  ---

  [1] This report was prepared by Jonathan Becker, Professor of Politics, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Director of the Bard Center for Civic Engagement, and students from the Bard Center for Civic Engagement, led by Natalia Novoselteva. Novoseltseva conducted the research as a part of a fall 2023 course, “Student Voting: Power, Politics and Race in the Fight for American Democracy,” taught by Simon Gilhooley and Jonathan Becker, a course supported by the Andrew Mellon Foundation and the Open Society University Network. Novoseltseva received a research micro-grant supported by the Mellon Foundation to allow her to continue research over the winter break in 2023-2024. Others contributing to the report include Anna L., Erika Jeanty, and Christina Jones.
   

  [2] Among other things, the lawsuits demonstrated that Election Commissioner Erik Haight (R) attempted to force Bard students to vote in a small church 1.5 miles from campus during the Covid election of 2020, a space the church elders even deemed unsafe and also did not meet State requirements concerning access to public transportation -  the Americans with Disabilities Act form used for the church was so inaccurate that it begged the question of whether it was a product of incompetence or malfeasance. Haight was also deemed to have been untruthful in his statement to a Supreme Court Justice in Dutchess County over the possibility and consequences of moving a poll site prior to the 2020 election. For more on the Bard case, see Jonathan Becker and Erin Cannan, “Institution as Citizen: Colleges and Universities as Actors in Defense of Student Voting Rights,” Rutgers Law Review, Summer 2022, pp, 1870-1905. For further information, go to: https://cce.bard.edu/community/election/voting-rights/
  .

  [3] This survey was conducted in the spring of 2023 through inquires to county Boards of Election.

  
  

  Download Study as PDF

  
  Post Date: 01-06-2024
  
• Bard College Awarded $399,000 Grant from Mellon Foundation for Project on Voting Rights
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  Bard College Awarded $399,000 Grant from Mellon Foundation for Project on Voting Rights

  

  Students outside Bard College’s Bertelsmann Campus Center after the 2022 midterm election. Photo by Jonathan Asiedu ’24
  

  Bard College is proud to announce that it has received a $399,000 award from the Mellon Foundation to support a three-year applied learning research curricular project on voting rights. The project, done in collaboration with North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Tuskegee University, Prairie View A&M University, and The Andrew Goodman Foundation, will use the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18 and outlawed age-based voter discrimination, as a prism through which to understand the history of voting and disenfranchisement in the United States and the role of college communities in the fight for voting rights. 
   
  The project will produce research and teaching materials on the history of voting rights, with a special focus on the 26th Amendment, in the form of written and video case studies, recorded lectures, and oral histories. These materials will be contextualized by the historic and contemporary struggles for voting rights on these campuses and will in turn be used in the classroom in codesigned and cotaught network collaborative courses that will take place simultaneously at the four main partner institutions of higher education: Bard College, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Tuskegee University, and Prairie View A&M University. The materials will also be used in trainings of student ambassadors of The Andrew Goodman Foundation, a national organization situated on 81 campuses across 26 states and Washington, D.C., including at these institutions, with a mission to make youth voices and votes a powerful force in democracy. The Andrew Goodman Foundation will lift up their students’ ongoing work on these campuses and across its network, and historically ground and help shape their future civic engagement activities as promoters and defenders of the right to vote. 
   
  This project highlights how academic institutions and their leaders can also serve as important civic actors in promoting and defending democratic principles. The four institutions centrally involved in the project offer unique insights into the role of colleges in the fight for voting rights, particularly the fight against discrimination based on race and age. 
   
  Bard College has for the last quarter century participated in four successful lawsuits, one federal and three state, grounded in the 26th Amendment, that established student voting eligibility, a polling site on campus, and the adoption of a state law mandating polling sites on college campuses with more than 300 registered student voters and outlawing campus gerrymanders. 
   
  Tuskegee University (then Tuskegee Institute) and its Dean of Students Charles Goode Gomillion were at the center of a boycott in response to the decision by the Town of Tuskegee to gerrymander town lines so as to exclude the majority of Black residents. Gomillion was the lead plaintiff in the landmark 1960 Supreme Court case, Gomillion v. Lightfoot, in which the court found – for the first time – that an election district boundary designed to exclude Blacks denied equal representation in violation of the 15th Amendment of the US Constitution. 
   
  North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (North Carolina A&T) was not only the home of the Greensboro Four and a critical catalyzing actor during the civil rights movement, but was featured in recent North Carolina state and federal cases Harper v. Lewis and Common Cause v. Runcho, which fought corrosive partisan gerrymandering in the state and ultimately caused the invalidation of the state map which divided the university’s campus into two congressional districts.
   
  Prairie View A&M was involved in the only 26th Amendment case that went before the Supreme Court, Symm v. United States, which in 1979 established the rights of students to vote as residents where they attend college. Prairie View A&M students have subsequently led numerous efforts to fight voter harassment and intimidation, including more recently in a federal case for equal access to early on-campus voting opportunities. 
   
  Melanye Price, Director of the Ruth J. Simmons Center for Race and Justice, Prairie View A&M University, said, “Prairie View and the Ruth J. Simmons Center for Race and Justice are proud to be part of this grant. Our students have been at the forefront of student voting rights advocacy and it is important the current students know this history. We are excited to partner with the Mellon Foundation, Bard College, and other HBCUs to bring this history to national attention”
   
  Dr. Jelani M. Favors, the Henry E. Frye Distinguished Professor of History at North Carolina A&T State University, said, “North Carolina A&T State University is excited to partner with Bard College, Prairie View A&M, Tuskegee University, and The Andrew Goodman Foundation in launching this new teaching and research initiative. With support from the Mellon Foundation and the Open Society University Network, our institutions are poised to further highlight the legacy of civic action and social justice that have defined our campuses and to educate a new generation of students on the challenges that continue to threaten and undermine American democracy.”
   
  Dr. Lisa Bratton, Associate Professor of History, Tuskegee University, said “I am thankful to Bard College for spearheading this collaboration and am excited about the opportunity to work with other HBCUs as we highlight the groundbreaking work of Charles Gomillion. This is yet another opportunity for students to learn more about the history that was made right here in Tuskegee.”
  
  Jonathan Becker, Professor of Political Studies at Bard and Bard’s Vice President for Academic Affairs, who is the project’s Principal Investigator, said, “We are thrilled that the Mellon Foundation is supporting this project, which unites four universities and a non-profit that have been centrally involved in defending the rights of students to vote and the fight against race-based disenfranchisement. Young people are the country’s future and defending their voting rights is essential to a healthy democracy.”
   
  Yael Bromberg, Esq., a constitutional rights attorney, leading legal scholar of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment and lecturer at Rutgers Law School, who additionally serves as Special Counsel and Strategic Advisor to the President/CEO of The Andrew Goodman Foundation, said, “This unique applied learning collaboration will be the first to examine and conceptualize the ways in which a protected class of voters – youth voters – experience and fight against unconstitutional violations of the right to vote, and the unique role of academic institutions in supporting them. The collaboration is special in that we will train and inspire young democracy practitioners, based on the studied experiences of their peers across the country, how to effectively organize and advocate, and when necessary, litigate, for social change.” 
   
  Charles Imohiosen, Esq., President/CEO of The Andrew Goodman Foundation, said: “The Andrew Goodman Foundation is excited to continue to partner with North Carolina A&T University, Prairie View A&M University, and of course Bard College, to make youth voices and votes a powerful force in democracy. We look forward to welcoming Tuskegee University into our family, and are grateful to the Mellon Foundation for making this possible. This unique applied learning collaboration will allow The Andrew Goodman Foundation to share best practices and skills from our network and learn collectively with our partners, as we continue to train and empower young people with the key tools to be effective democracy practitioners.”
  
  Post Date: 01-03-2023