Gift of 74 bronzes finds home in dedicated gallery in the Purdue Memorial Union. Plus, Purdue and Election Board close in on an on-campus site for voting, after criticism mounts.
How are we going to learn about voting issues and all that when Dave hangs up his notebook holster for the last time? Teaching the kids to vote is great, but some of them need to become experienced journalists to show the way. For today, I'm grateful that Dave is lousy at retiring!
What a delight this Avrum Gray is! He is spot on that mechanical engineering at Purdue requires almost no Humanities courses. This is an astounding gift to the Purdue community.
For me, the most shocking thing about the whole on-campus polling place kerfuffle is how few Purdue students have voted in prior Presidential elections when there
was an on-campus polling place.
Because my main job here is to generate story ideas for Dave -- you're welcome, Dave! -- I think he should do a piece on why Purdue students are so politically disengaged.
Interesting point. PurdueVotes reported that 67% of students participated in the 2020 presidential election. I don't have a breakdown of how they came up with that number. But it likely would include students who don't vote in Tippecanoe County. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but breaking down student vote numbers would take some serious data drilling, given that they don't all live on campus, separate from other voters in West Lafayette/Lafayette, and that the vote center concept doesn't relegate someone to vote at any particular polling place. Example: How many students went to the County Office Building for the month of early voting before Election Day? Or voted at Pay Less locations, when that was still going on? There's a way to get to that number, I'm sure. But it's not there on the surface or merely in on-campus voting figures.
But I find that report to be somewhat baffling. In particular, I'm really not clear where any of their student voting numbers come from. You reported that roughly 2500 students voted at the on-campus polling place in 2020. But the NSLVE report says that slightly more than 25,000 students voted overall in that election. I find it a little hard to believe that 22,500-ish voted at other local polling sites or by absentee ballot elsewhere. And I'm not sure how you would be able to establish that even if you wanted to. You'd have to cross-tabulate voting records from jurisdictions all over the country with the Purdue student directory, which, I suppose is doable but . . . effortful. I'm not even sure that directory information regarding a student's official place of residence is even a public record, which would greatly complicate the cross-tabulation.
I know I’m real late in this comment, but I would guess the vast majority of students vote absentee anyway, with a much higher percentage during 2020.
I was a student from 2002 until 2007 and voted absentee in my home county of Bartholomew until just before the 2004 presidential election due to forgetting to request a ballot. It was easy to update my voting location to WL when it was too late to request an absentee ballot.
But I never would have switched as a student otherwise and I know a good number don’t. They are only here for 4 years, so it would seem a bit ridiculous to think that most would switch their vote locations to be here, particularly out of state students.
Mad props -- I guess -- to the Purdue honchos behind the Degas exhibit for somehow managing to avoid addressing all of the vexing questions that have been raised about the provenance and authenticity of sculptures in that collection, and of the ethics of displaying them without even acknowledging that those questions have been asked, repeatedly.
Thank you for the voting center updates, Dave! Happy this is getting enough exposure to incite change.
How are we going to learn about voting issues and all that when Dave hangs up his notebook holster for the last time? Teaching the kids to vote is great, but some of them need to become experienced journalists to show the way. For today, I'm grateful that Dave is lousy at retiring!
The Purdue Exponent has been all over this, too. Hats off to reporters there.
What a delight this Avrum Gray is! He is spot on that mechanical engineering at Purdue requires almost no Humanities courses. This is an astounding gift to the Purdue community.
For me, the most shocking thing about the whole on-campus polling place kerfuffle is how few Purdue students have voted in prior Presidential elections when there
was an on-campus polling place.
Because my main job here is to generate story ideas for Dave -- you're welcome, Dave! -- I think he should do a piece on why Purdue students are so politically disengaged.
Interesting point. PurdueVotes reported that 67% of students participated in the 2020 presidential election. I don't have a breakdown of how they came up with that number. But it likely would include students who don't vote in Tippecanoe County. I'm sure there's a way to do it, but breaking down student vote numbers would take some serious data drilling, given that they don't all live on campus, separate from other voters in West Lafayette/Lafayette, and that the vote center concept doesn't relegate someone to vote at any particular polling place. Example: How many students went to the County Office Building for the month of early voting before Election Day? Or voted at Pay Less locations, when that was still going on? There's a way to get to that number, I'm sure. But it's not there on the surface or merely in on-campus voting figures.
The "PurdueVotes" stat for 2020 seems to be based on this report:
https://allinchallenge.org/wp-content/uploads/Purdue-University-Main-Campus-NSLVE-Report-2020.pdf
But I find that report to be somewhat baffling. In particular, I'm really not clear where any of their student voting numbers come from. You reported that roughly 2500 students voted at the on-campus polling place in 2020. But the NSLVE report says that slightly more than 25,000 students voted overall in that election. I find it a little hard to believe that 22,500-ish voted at other local polling sites or by absentee ballot elsewhere. And I'm not sure how you would be able to establish that even if you wanted to. You'd have to cross-tabulate voting records from jurisdictions all over the country with the Purdue student directory, which, I suppose is doable but . . . effortful. I'm not even sure that directory information regarding a student's official place of residence is even a public record, which would greatly complicate the cross-tabulation.
But what do I know . . . . ?
I know I’m real late in this comment, but I would guess the vast majority of students vote absentee anyway, with a much higher percentage during 2020.
I was a student from 2002 until 2007 and voted absentee in my home county of Bartholomew until just before the 2004 presidential election due to forgetting to request a ballot. It was easy to update my voting location to WL when it was too late to request an absentee ballot.
But I never would have switched as a student otherwise and I know a good number don’t. They are only here for 4 years, so it would seem a bit ridiculous to think that most would switch their vote locations to be here, particularly out of state students.
Makes sense. But it would be interesting to know if that is, in fact, what's happening.
Mad props -- I guess -- to the Purdue honchos behind the Degas exhibit for somehow managing to avoid addressing all of the vexing questions that have been raised about the provenance and authenticity of sculptures in that collection, and of the ethics of displaying them without even acknowledging that those questions have been asked, repeatedly.
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/opinion/purdue-degas-donation-valsuani-foundry-1234669297/
https://blog.thefineartblog.com/2011/09/are-74-degas-bronzes-cast-in-1998-worth_19.html#:~:text=According%20to%20William%20D.,for%20about%20%242%20million%20each.
The most ludicrous thing is the braying about the collection being worth $21 million. Did they get that appraisal from Donald Trump?
This comment is about your coverage of the Purdue voting center issue: thank you!