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].



 

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

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

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

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

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