Push for Purdue voting site on Election Day continues, ahead of key vote Friday
Student leaders voice concern, state and local Democrats rally for better campus access to vote centers, with Election Board set Friday to add an early site at Purdue’s Co-Rec.
This edition is sponsored by Duke Energy, promoting Mental Health America Wabash Valley Region’s third annual Mocktail Monday, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Sept. 30 at The Stables Event Center, 7071 S. County Road 100 East. Tickets are $40. For tickets and more information go to mocktailmonday.org
PUSH CONTINUES FOR PURDUE VOTE CENTER ELECTION DAY, AHEAD OF KEY VOTE FRIDAY
The drumbeat continued this week for on-campus polling places before and on Election Day, ahead of a Friday meeting where the Tippecanoe County Election Board will consider a day of early voting at the Purdue Co-Rec brokered in the past week by county and university officials amid stiff criticism about inadequate voting access for students.
On Wednesday, the Purdue Student Government Senate voted unanimously for the university and county election officials to make sure the early voting site happens at the Co-Rec. The resolution also called for an Election Day vote center on campus on Nov. 5.
“The timeline here is really short, so whether there are further additions to be made other than the Co-Rec early voting, I'm not sure,” Jason Packard, Purdue Student Government president, said. “For me, I think I want to take a firm stance on this and make sure that this never happens again.”
Meanwhile, state and county Democratic Party leaders were making rounds on campus and in the community, rallying support for more voting options on campus – not only for convenience for students but also not to leave the closest off-campus site overloaded on Election Day.
“Adding the Co-Rec is better than nothing,” Ken Jones, vice chair of the Tippecanoe County Democratic Party, said Thursday. “But it’s likely to be a very busy site and it leaves a lot of students who will not have voted by then and at risk of really overwhelming the one near-campus voting site, West Lafayette City Hall. That voting site alone isn’t big enough to handle what we think is the residual of Purdue student voting.”
Purdue and county officials scrambled last week to work out sol as news reports highlighted a lack of voting sites on a campus.
The Tippecanoe County Election Board voted on Aug. 15 to set up 15 Election Day vote centers and nine early voting sites, starting Oct. 8. Election officials said at the time that the county looked to work through logistics – including getting state-required dedicated and secure connections for voter registration data, as well as state-required parking spaces – with Purdue and suggested various sites on campus without getting the university to commit before the Election Board vote.
Election Day vote centers will include one at West Lafayette City Hall – about three blocks from the eastern edge of campus – and five hours of early voting on Oct. 22 at First United Methodist Church, a half-mile west of the university’s residence halls on Mitch Daniels Boulevard.
The proposal drafted for the three-member Election Board includes a recommendation for six hours of early voting, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., on Oct. 24 at the Co-Rec, according to Mike Smith, a staff member with the Election Board who coordinates voting sites.
The Election Board also is expected to consider adding an early voting site on Lafayette’s north end.
Whether the possibility of additional campus options – whether another early site or an Election Day vote center – will get any traction on Friday wasn’t clear.
“Lots of ideas being floated in individual conversations,” Smith said Thursday. “But nothing’s sticking to the wall.”
Last week, Smith said committing to an Election Day site this late in campaign season would be “more than hard,” largely due to state requirements for setting up and certifying the county’s 275 ballot machines in time to be deployed for either early or Election Day use.
Purdue officials have deferred questions beyond official statements from the university about agreeing to accommodate the Co-Rec polling place until after the Election Board meets Friday.
Smith said there are 3,058 students registered as Tippecanoe County residents in the four campus precincts, as of Wednesday. He said that was down from 6,696 students in those precincts in 2020, the most recent presidential election. That’s a 54% drop at this point, despite a 20% increase in enrollment on the West Lafayette campus in that time. (Smith attributed that in part to work the Purdue Votes effort has put in to educate students about absentee voting in their home counties or states.)
That would only include students who live on or near campus. And voter registration continues until Oct. 7 in Indiana.
Lynlee Rice, a Purdue Student Senate member, told PSG members that there was reason to hold out some hope – and hold off on lining up transportation ideas for students to get to polls on Election Day.
“It’s possible that they can go back, they can change the timeline, they can work with the Co-Rec to extend the space request,” Rice said. “A few days ago, they weren’t going to have any early voting.”
Here’s the Purdue Student Government resolution on voting accessibility on campus:
Packard said that even with a day voting at the Co-Rec two weeks before Election Day posed potential problems for students.
“If you live in McCutcheon or Hillenbrand (residence halls), that's nearly a 1½-mile walk (to city hall),” Packard said. “This raises the question, how many students are not going to make that 1½-mile walk because it's inconvenient to go vote? There is some amount of students that are going to come to that conclusion. And that's a form of voter suppression.”
Tippecanoe County uses a vote center system that allows voters to go to any polling place in the county to cast a ballot, rather in their home precincts. Here’s how voting when at on-campus vote center sites in the past four presidential elections.
2020: 1,127 on Election Day (Mackey Arena); 1,299 in early voting (Mackey Arena)
2016: 2,409 on Election Day (Purdue Memorial Union); 426 early (Stewart Center)
2012: 2,171 on Election Day (Purdue Memorial Union); 450 early (Stewart Center)
2008: 3,475 on Election Day (Purdue Memorial Union); 3,793 early (two days at Stewart Center)
When early and Election Day ballots were combined, here’s how campus vote centers contributed to the overall turnout in each of those presidential election years in Tippecanoe County, based on county records.
2020: 2,426 was 6.1% of the total (39,932)
2016: 2,835 was 4.4% of the total (64,227)
2012: 2,597 was 4.4% of the total (58,275)
2008: 7,268 was 10.4% of the total (69,574)
Jones said that if the county puts 20 machines at the Co-Rec, filled to capacity by voters taking three minutes apiece, that would account for 1,600 early votes if the Oct. 24 site is open for four hours. It would be a potential 2,400 ballots if the six-hour proposal is approved Friday.
“Which pushes remaining voters just under 5,000 (from 2008 numbers),” Jones said. “We're working with numbers that suggest that we're probably dealing with an Election Day voting total that looks like 2008, and yet we have no voting locations. So the essentially, the early voting site is helpful. It's not adequate.”
Laila Veidemanis, a West Lafayette City Council member and a Purdue student, said students might not realize the situation until it’s too late on Election Day and skip out when confronted by long lines at City Hall.
Mike Schmuhl, chair of the Indiana Democratic Party, said it didn’t make sense that a site couldn’t be accommodated.
“I think about all of the things that happened at Purdue, day in, day out, week in, week out, year in, year out,” Schmuhl said. “World class conferences, guest lectures, sports events, obviously, Boilermaker football and basketball. Having a voting site that is open for 12 hours on Election Day, in one of the most consequential elections that we're going to have in our lifetimes, regardless of your political persuasion, I think is a no brainer.”
If you go: The Tippecanoe County Election Board will meet at 10 a.m. Friday, Sept. 27, at the County Office Building, 20 N. Third St. in Lafayette.
For more
Past coverage:
Your ballot and voter registration check: The voter registration deadline to vote in the Nov. 5 election is Oct. 7. To check your voter registration, get registered or to see candidates who will be on your general election ballot, go to the Secretary of State’s portal at www.indianavoters.com.
Vote centers: Tippecanoe County voters may cast a ballot at any vote center, whether on Election Day or during four weeks of early voting. Here’s where they’ll be.
Early voting
Oct. 8-Oct. 11, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Tippecanoe County Office Building, 20 N. Third St., Lafayette
Oct. 15-Oct. 18, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Tippecanoe County Office Building, 20 N. Third St., Lafayette
Oct. 21-Oct. 25, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Tippecanoe County Office Building, 20 N. Third St., Lafayette
Oct. 22, noon-5 p.m., First United Methodist Church, 1700 Mitch Daniels Boulevard, West Lafayette
Oct. 26, 9 a.m.-1 p.m., West Point Fire Station, 4949 Indiana 25 S., West Point; Otterbein United Methodist Church, 405 Oxford St., Otterbein; Clarks Hill Christian Church, 9510 Pearl St., Clarks Hill; 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Tippecanoe County Office Building, 20 N. Third St., Lafayette;
Oct. 28-Nov. 1, 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Tippecanoe County Office Building, 20 N. Third St., Lafayette
Oct. 29-Nov. 1, noon-6 p.m., Tippecanoe County Fairgrounds, 1406 Teal Road, Lafayette; Eastside Assembly of God, 6121 E. County Road 50 South, Lafayette; John Dennis Wellness Center, 1101 Kalberer Road, West Lafayette.
Nov. 2, 9 a.m.-3 p.m., Tippecanoe County Fairgrounds, 1406 Teal Road, Lafayette; Eastside Assembly of God, 6121 E. County Road 50 South, Lafayette; John Dennis Wellness Center, 1101 Kalberer Road, West Lafayette.
Nov. 2, 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Tippecanoe County Office Building, 20 N. Third St., Lafayette
Nov. 4, 8 a.m.-noon, Tippecanoe County Office Building, 20 N. Third St., Lafayette
On Election Day
Lafayette
Tippecanoe County Fairgrounds, 1406 Teal Road
Lafayette Community Church of the Nazarene, 3801 Union St.
Evangelical Covenant Church, 3600 S. Ninth St.
Tippecanoe County Historical Association History Center, 522 Columbia St.
Wea Ridge Baptist Church, 1051 E. County Road 430 South
Eastside Assembly of God, 6121 E. County Road 50 South
Northend Community Center, 2000 Elmwood Ave.
West Lafayette
Faith West Community Center, 1920 Northwestern Ave.
Margerum City Hall/West Lafayette City Hall, 222 N. Chauncey Ave.
Connection Point Church, 2541 Cumberland Ave.
John Dennis Wellness Center, 1101 Kalberer Road
Others
Dayton Gathering Point Church, 7201 Wesleyan Drive, Dayton
Shadeland Town Hall, 2485 Indiana 25 West, Shadeland
Battle Ground Fire Station, 112 North St., Battle Ground
Tippecanoe Township Volunteer Fire Station No. 2, 448 W. County Road 650 North, West Lafayette
Thanks, again, to sponsor Duke Energy, promoting Mental Health America Wabash Valley Region’s third annual Mocktail Monday, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Sept. 30 at The Stables Event Center, 7071 S. County Road 100 East. Tickets are $40. For tickets and more information go to mocktailmonday.org
Thank you for supporting Based in Lafayette, an independent, local reporting project. Free and full-ride subscription options are ready for you here.
Tips, story ideas? I’m at davebangert1@gmail.com.
I’m still unclear on who or what entity decided that there wouldn’t be polling places on campus. Is it the county? Purdue University? I’m late to this story.