Report: 20 New York Colleges Don’t Have Polling Places, Violating State Law
At least 20 colleges in New York don’t have a polling place, according to a new analysis from the New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG). The lack of polling places on these college campuses appears to be in violation of a 2022 New York law that requires campuses with at least 300 registered voters living on campus to have a polling place.
In 2022, to drive voter engagement among young voters, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) signed a law requiring poll sites on college campuses with at least 300 registered voters. Since then, however, many colleges throughout the Empire State have been slow to comply with the law. In February, a vice president for Bard College sent a letter to college presidents and administrators urging them to take action for more polling places at university and college campuses.
In his letter, Jonathan Becker — Bard College’s vice president for academic affairs — cited a Rutgers Law School study that found only a 2.2% increase in on-campus polling sites between the 2018 and 2022 elections. And a follow-up survey, released by Bard College, “found that there was negligible change” in the number of polling sites at New York college campuses between November elections in 2022 and 2023.
According to NYPIRG’s study of New York poll sites in May, there were 97 colleges with on-campus student housing, but no poll sites on campus. In the months since, NYPIRG found that only two colleges — Buffalo State University and SUNY Geneseo — added poll sites to their campuses. The report also found that 26 of those colleges did not have a poll site within a mile of campus.
“Students too often face barriers to voting, and placing poll sites far off campus further dampens turnout among young voters,” said Blair Horner, Executive Director of NYPIRG, said in a statement. “New Yorkers have a constitutional right to vote, policymakers should be reducing obstacles to voting, not increasing them. County Boards have a responsibility to make sure students have every opportunity to vote in the general election.”
In November of 2022, months after Hochul signed the new law requiring polling sites on campus, a coalition of pro-voting groups sued over the lack of a polling place at Vassar College. The lawsuit succeeded, with a trial court and appellate court both ordering the Dutchess County Board of Elections to operate a polling site on Vassar’s campus.