Students can’t vote on campus

On Nov. 5, 2020, Boilermakers made their way to Mackey Arena, not to chant for Boiler basketball, but to make their voices known in another way – casting their vote for the next President of the United States.
Four years later, that same opportunity won’t be granted to Purdue students at Mackey, or anywhere else on campus.
A line began to form outside of Mackey Arena around 5:40 a.m. on Election Day in 2020.
Kathleen Martinus | Staff Photographer
The county reportedly met with PurdueVotes, a campus-wide committee that works to increase student voting rates, to determine if Purdue was qualified to host a location.
"The county requested a facility on campus that would meet statutory requirements, and they were unable to do that this cycle,” said Mike Smith, a member of the county voter registration board for over 40 years.
The PurdueVotes coalition and members of its organization failed to provide comment.
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When the Exponent asked Purdue why there would be no voting locations on campus, spokesperson Trevor Peters said “Purdue University does not determine voting locations.”
Smith said he thinks the university’s response lacked important context because there are several qualifications needed for Purdue to host a voting location.
“That’s true, (Purdue) does not pick the locations," he said. "But we requested a location and were not given a workable option.”
The Exponent asked Purdue to confirm whether it was unable to meet the requirements to hold a voting location. Despite multiple attempts to reach out to the university, it failed to provide further comment.
Eight years ago, dozens of students lined up to vote in the Purdue Memorial Union.
Exponent File Photo
The qualifications that Purdue has reportedly had issues with in the past, Smith said, are parking accessibility, Purdue Police ticketing poll workers and stopping the loading and unloading of polling machines and “Purdue personnel” removing candidate signs.
Removing candidate signs is a crime and can qualify as criminal conversion, according to a 2022 brochure published by the Indiana Election Division.
“Loading and unloading supplies and equipment has been difficult,” Smith said. “(I) expressed my concern to the Office of the President and to the chief of police in the past few years and that's kind of an open, unresolved issue too."
Smith said they had made proper arrangements through PurdueVotes and the Black Cultural Center to host a voting location there last spring.
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Anne Edwards, director of the BCC, assumed her position last January and said she could not speak to what happened prior to her tenure as director, but said the BCC has been used as a voting location twice since she took the job.
Smith said members at the event reported that Purdue Police allegedly prevented the loading and unloading of election materials by limiting their time frame at the loading zone and not allowing the redelivery of supplies to the zone.
“The police stopped them, didn’t even understand what they were doing, didn’t even know it was an election day," he said.
Smith also said that PUPD has allegedly been present inside of voting locations in the past, which is against Indiana law.
Exponent File Photo
Purdue Police Capt. Kang said he did not recall a time PUPD has interfered with the loading and unloading of voting materials.
“We have provided extra patrol around the (voting) building, but we don’t typically monitor the voting site,” Kang said. “We typically do not touch any voting machines. I mean, there’s no need to.”
Andrea Williams, a member of the League of Women Voters and former lecturer at Purdue, called the lack of transparency around there being no voting location at Purdue “voter suppression and intimidation.”
“I'm just so upset. I'm so upset,” Williams said. “I think there's a larger picture about democracy, and to see it happen makes me very emotional.”
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Though students cannot vote on campus, they can still register to vote at the Krach Leadership Center in room 336 during open hours, according to the Roger C. Stewart Leadership and Professional Development Department’s website.
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