ALBANY – Niagara University and St. Bonaventure University are on a list of 20 four-year colleges that continue to lack nearby voting locations for students despite a state law requiring it, a coalition of government watchdog groups said Monday.
In April 2022, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law a requirement that colleges with 300 or more registered voters must have a nearby place to vote.
In an Oct. 4 letter to the state Board of Elections, the coalition of seven government watchdog groups highlighted a May report issued by the New York Public Interest Research Group that found 97 colleges in New York had on-campus housing but no poll site on campus. It found 26 colleges – the 20 four-year schools and six community colleges – had more than 1,000 students and on-campus housing but no place for students to vote within a mile.
Only two colleges, Buffalo State University and SUNY Geneseo, have since added voting sites on campus, the coalition said.
The coalition’s letter noted it was a follow-up to earlier letters it sent in the spring and summer.
“As you know, our organizations are concerned with youth voter participation and we wrote urging the board to review polling locations to ensure that all covered colleges have polling locations placed on campus for the upcoming general election,” the letter stated. “We have now reviewed the locations of polling sites for the general election and found few changes with regards to including polling locations on college campuses … we would like to understand how the law requiring a polling place on or contiguous to college campuses with 300 or more registered voters is being applied in these cases.”
A spokeswoman for the state Board of Elections said that “our own internal reviews have found that none of the schools listed in the letter hit the threshold of 300 voters registered at the college or university’s contiguous property.”
The students have to be…
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