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When Vassar students went to the polls on Tuesday, Nov. 3 at Arthur S. May Elementary School, many had their eligibility challenged because of discrepancies between the addresses under which students registered and the addresses where they currently live.
By mid-afternoon, Town of Poughkeepsie Republican Committee Chairman Thomas Martinelli filed an injunction to the New York Supreme Court required all voters challenged on the basis of residency to fill out ‘affidavit ballots,’ or paper ballots, by hand. A later appeal on the evening of Nov. 3 to an appellate court repealed this injunction, ensuring that all the affidavit ballots of Vassar students will be counted.
The Poughkeepsie Democratic Party appealed this injunction; it was lifted at 8 p.m. Had the appeal not succeeded affidavit votes would only have been counted in the event of a tight race. The votes, in other words, would have been treated like absentee ballots.
Republican incumbent Angela Flesland defeated Democratic challenger Gretchen Lieb, a reference librarian at Vassar College, for the District 6 seat on the County Legislature by a margin of 162 votes.
In District 8, in which the Town Houses (THs) are included, Republican incumbent Rob Rolison defeated Democratic challenger Mike Salvia.
Since November 2008, there has been a marked increase in the number of Vassar students choosing to vote in Poughkeepsie instead of their home districts. According to an article by the Poughkeepsie Journal, 429 Vassar students are registered to vote in Dutchess County (“Some Vassar students must vote by affidavit, judge rules,” 11.2.09).
Challenging a Vote
According to New York State law, when students change dorms from year to year, they should re-register under their new addresses. So, at Arthur S. May Elementary School, the district voting location, Chairman of the Town of Poughkeepsie Republican Committee Thomas Martinelli, acting as a poll-watcher in that location, challenged the votes of all Vassar students based on residency issues.
When Vassar student Ian Heller ’12 went to cast his vote at Arthur S. May Elementary School at approximately 1 p.m., an election official challenged his eligibility. Self-described “election expert” and political strategist Ken Girardin challenged Heller’s eligibility on the grounds that he had registered to vote under an address that was no longer valid.
“Vassar misinformed its students,” said Girardin, referring to the following erroneous information posted on the Vassar News Infosite: “Where you vote depends upon the residence you lived in when you registered to vote, not necessarily where you live now.”
“You can’t use your freshman dorm [as your current address under which you register to vote] if you no longer live there,” said Girardin.
“I barely got a word in,” said Heller, “I’ll be honest, if it was a voter intimidation tactic, it worked.” Heller however, was finally allowed to cast his vote in polling booth.
According to Board of Elections (BOE) senior elections specialist Ira Margulies, Girardin was well within his rights as a voter and election observer to challenge Heller’s eligibility, stating, “To challenge a voter is perfectly legal. There’s nothing wrong with it. But that doesn’t take away your right to vote.”
When a voter’s right to cast a ballot is challenged, there is a set protocol for resolution, according to Margulies. First, a voter or elections worker present at the polling location must make a challenge. Then the voter is required to take an oath certifying that his or her voter registration information is correct. Then there is an opportunity for the four elections specialists to question the voter and decide whether or not he or she is eligible. If at least two of the four specialists affirm that the voter is eligible, he or she can cast a vote in a polling booth.
According to Margulies, however, the trouble often comes when election officials fail to inform voters that they are allowed, by law, to cast a provisional paper ballot if their names appear on the voter registry—even if they are deemed ineligible. Heller was not informed of this right, but was allowed to cast his vote because BOE representatives at Arthur S. May deemed him eligible.
According to Girardin, though the challenge was “raised, but dropped,” and he didn’t consider it a formal challenge to Heller’s status as a legal voter. Margulies disagreed, stating that the challenge was a formal one that required the vote of the four BOE elections specialists present at Arthur S. May.
Boyd Gardner ’12 had a similar experience to Heller’s, but was asked to take an oath before BOE officials. “Right after I signed myself in [an election official] challenged my eligibility to vote based on his belief that I don’t live where I say I live,” said Gardner,
“I had to swear that I lived where I said I lived, which was in Main House.”
Court Injunction
“Based on that misleading information [concerning residency],” explained Martinelli, “we want to confirm that people are voting where they live.”
Students who voted later in the day, however, after the injunction to the New York Supreme Court had been passed by Judge James V. Brands, had to, according to the injunction, “cast their ballots as affidavit ballots, or alternatively, for such voters to appear before a justice of this Court and on the basis of adequate evidence of residency, apply for an order of the Court allowing them to vote on the voting machines.” These affidavit ballots would have been counted on Nov. 12.
“This is unconstitutional,” said Town Democratic Committee Chairman and New York Democratic Lawyer Council Chair Gary Levine. “There is a process in the election laws as to how to handle residency.” He explained that prospective voters whose current addresses don’t match the address at which they were registered, but are still in the same voting district, should be required to take an oath “given to the inspectors.”
The issue brought up by the Republicans, Levine explained, “is legitimate if a student moved out of an election district…but if they move from dorm to dorm, they should still be able to vote.”
Moving out of an election district is an issue for all current Vassar seniors who moved to the THs this year, since the THs are in District 8, while the rest of the campus is part of District 6.
“Anyone whom they challenged based on residence is being prevented from voting on a machine, not from voting period,” explained Vassar Democrats Vice President of Voter and Community Outreach Megan Levine ’12. Affidavit ballots “go back to the Board of Elections—they receive it, scrutinize it, and determine whether they count or not.”
Dutchess County Democratic Campaign Field Coordinator Sung Eun Kim ’10 expressed skepticism as to whether affidavit votes would have been counted. “Paper ballots go missing,” he said; “That’s how [the Republican party] pulled off the 2000 Bush election.”
Republican election inspector for District 6 Donna Burns left Arthur S. May Elementary School around 4 p.m. in protest of Martinelli’s “harassment” towards Vassar students. “Martinelli’s challenging every Vassar student,” Burrns said. “If you live in a dorm and changed rooms, it’s considered fraud…I think it’s because a librarian from Vassar’s running.”
Democratic Commissioner of the Dutchess County BOE Fran Knapp called challenges to Vassar students’ eligibility unfounded, and “nothing more than voter intimidation.” Knapp was outraged at the situation at Arthur S. May, and said, “you cannot wholesale block a group from voting. And that’s what [Republican election officials] are trying to do. It’s terrible. It’s a political tactic.” Knapp sees a correlation between last year’s outpouring of student voters from Vassar and an increase in “intimidation of student voters.”
Professor of Political Science Sidney Plotkin weighed in, “New York state has some of the most cumbersome, obstreperous, frustrating, confusing, difficult voting laws in the U.S.…that’s a legacy of the old days of machine politics when the dominant parties wanted to assure that only their voters would get to the polls.”
And this legacy is still alive today, he says. “The two parties in New York cooperate to complicate these rules. As a result, judges gain an enormous amount of discretionary power to decide who gets to vote and who doesn’t. “It’s very easy to violate New York State’s voting laws,” Plotkin concluded.
Injunction Repealed
In response to Martinelli’s court injunction filed in the early afternoon on Tuesday morning, New York Appellate Court Judge Mark Dillon agreed to hear arguments via conference call from Knapp and Republican BOE Commissioner David Gamache, and their respective lawyers. Judge Dillon issued a stay on the injunction and, according to Knapp, ruled that
“Vassar College students can vote if they’re [registered] in the poll books.” For Vassar students, this means that affidavit ballots they cast during the day were counted along with votes cast in booths. Those votes were not be counted in the same manner as absentee ballots, as they would have, had the injunction remained. According to Knapp, “[Martinelli’s injunction] was totally targeted to suppress the college vote. It’s recognized case law that students can vote at college addresses.”
However, according to Kim, the repeal came too late for some Vassar students, who, Kim postulated in a telephone interview, were harassed or pressured into thinking they could not vote. Kim also stated that Lieb’s campaign is unaware of whether TH students’ votes were counted.
Town-Gown Tension
Assistant Professor of Classics Barbara Olsen believes Vassar student voters are “disproportionately challenged” at the polls compared with other voters. “I have a 124 Raymond Ave. address,” said Olsen, who is a House Fellow in Strong House, “but election officials made no attempt to challenge me [because I am not a student].”
Margulies argued that there are partisan issues at play in the way Vassar students like Gardner and Heller are treated when they go to the polls. “The people who are challenging these votes are Republicans,” he observed, referring to Vassar’s image as a liberal bloc of voters.
Democrat Fred Bunnell, Flesland’s predecessor in the County Legislature, agreed. He said that the influx of Democratic voters from Vassar is one factor pushing Dutchess County away from its status as a “one party-dominated Republican County,” and some Dutchess Republicans have see this as a threat. “If you look at numbers,” said Bunnell, “the Vassar students can swing this election, and that’s why [Republicans] are going all-out.”
“The inevitable tensions of a political campaign have come to the surface,” said Bunnell, pointing out that there is “a long history” of challenging student votes in close elections like Tuesday’s.
In addition to town-gown partisan tensions, Bunnell sees class issues at play in the challenges to Vassar voters. “Marist doesn’t have the same [political image] as Vassar. It’s class, but it’s also localism—you know, ‘this is our turf.’” Bunnell said, “Vassar College is perceived—including Vassar students and Vassar Democrats—as richer [than the rest of Dutchess County] as a whole.”
“I understand why communities get upset about [students voting],” said Plotkin, explaining that residents “fear that students will vote liberal…which will produce a proregulatory, higher-tax council…which people find offensive, because they’re the ones that are going to pay the taxes.”
“If students have residence in a community,” explain Plotkin, “by definition they legitimately claim the right to vote in that community. The notion that they are temporary residents strikes me as a futile false argument because residential mobility in the U.S. is very high under ordinary circumstances. Many of us live in communities for short periods of time and nevertheless vote in those communities.”
The situation Vassar students faced on Tuesday is not at all unique. College towns throughout the country have faced similar obstacles to voting, especially when the overall political leanings of the college differ from those of the town. “There is a sense that students vote different values from those of the community,” said Olsen. A similar event at the State University of New York at Purchase (SUNY Purchase) lead to the Williams-Salerno law in 1986, which ensured students’ right to vote in the district of their college residence.
For example, in the days leading up to the election, supporters of Flesland released fliers which read “Do you want Vassar College to decide who will represent you in the Dutchess County Elections?” The fliers continued, “Vassar College is a good neighbor, but the students who attend it are not permanent residents like us.” The posters criticize Lieb for living on the Vassar campus, “sheltered from the challenges we face in the Town of Poughkeepsie.”
Sophia Williams ’10, student intern with Flesland’s campaign and member of the Moderate, Independent and Conservative Alliance, stated in an e-mail that these fliers were not put out by Flesland’s campaign nor were they endorsed by her.
Professor of Political Science Richard Born noted that “they sent [the fliers] out clearly at the last minute. There’s no time to respond…this is a tactic that’s been used very frequently in slimy, dirty campaigning.” Born said that the fliers made clear attitudes that have been underlying in the community for a long time. “In the past it’s been implied: ‘Vassar is an island…Vassar is doing things in its own self interest,’” he said, “[but] this is the first time I’ve seen this so explicit.”
Comments on The Pougkeepsie Journal online article “Appellate judge overrules decision on Vassar student voting” showed strong reactions to the idea of Vassar students voting. “Vassar, Marist, Bard and CIA students…don’t have a long-term vested interest in the issues and decisions that affect us permanent local taxpayers,” wrote one commenter, saying, “I wish the visiting students would take that into consideration and decide not to vote in our local elections.” Other comments were more belligerent: “Few Vassar students have a clue about the real world. Have you ever heard them prattle on?
Likely safe to assume that not one has done an honest day’s labor or anything approaching manual work. Ever. They do have that whole smug, holier-than-thou thing down, however.”
The Dutchess County candidates held a public forum to Vassar on Oct. 28 at which Lieb, Flesland, Rolison and Salvia were in attendance. Also present were incumbent comptroller Diane Jablonski, who lost in Tuesday’s election to James L. Coughlan, and Judge David Steinberg, one of eleven candidates for New York Supreme Court, who lost to Orazio R. Bellantoni by approximately three percentage points.
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The flier, which was a color postcard sent to 6th District residents by mail, was marked "Paid for by Friends of Angela Flesland" (the Republican incumbent's re-election committee) and bore the return address "Republican Committee of Dutchess County."