Better voting protections

The John R. Lewis New York Voting Rights Act that passed the state Legislature last week will put in place worthwhile protections once Gov. Kathy Hochul signs it, which we urge her to do.

The act provides, among other things, legal grounds for people to sue for voter intimidation and for infringing on the voting rights of certain protected classes, and assistance for non-english speakers. Most likely to resonate in the Capital Region, though, is a requirement that jurisdictions that have flouted election law receive pre-clearance for local voting or election law changes from either the Attorney General’s Civil Rights Bureau or state Supreme Court.

Two candidates come immediately to mind. Just last year, Rensselaer County, after refusing to provide a convenient early voting location for minority voters, was forced to establish one in downtown Troy. And only after public outcry did the Saratoga Springs City School District abandon a plan to consolidate polling sites.

For voters in those areas, the pre-documentation clearance process can’t come soon enough.

SUNY: Out-of-state? Fuhgeddaboudit

The SUNY system has been more than a little lax in verifying student residency, allowing some out-of-state residents to get lower in-state tuition prices.

In an audit of 1,207 graduate student applications at seven SUNY schools, the state comptroller’s office found that students could get the discounted price simply by checking a box to attest that they were in-state residents. The audit found 35 percent of the applications included little or no proof of address.

SUNY officials noted that the graduate program is 12 percent of its overall student body (as if to imply the undergraduate procedures are more strict? Maybe the comptroller’s office should take a look.) and that students may be in-state but failed to provide the right documentation ( because lots of people get all the way to graduate school without being able to assemble an admissions packet?).

SUNY acknowledged it is working with school administrators to ensure is checked in the future. We suggest SUNY not ask for any tuition increases until it can consistently ensure it’s collecting the correct tuition amounts in the first place.

Life of courage comes to an end

Jeffrey Fudin, one of two Stratton VA Medical Center Hospital staffers who reported abuses of cancer research patients there in the 1990s, died in late May following a battle with cancer.

Mr. Fudin, who had been a clinical pharmacy specialist, and Anthony Mariano, Stratton’s former pharmacy director, went to the FBI to report allegations of widespread corruption. The hospital retaliated against both. Mr. Mariano said he was forced to leave. Mr. Fudin was fired, though he was later reinstated by a federal court. Two researchers were prosecuted on federal criminal charges.

We’ll likely never know how many veterans’ lives Mr. Fudin’s and Mr. Mariano’s integrity and courage saved. They did gain one noteworthy bit of recognition: In 2003, they were selected as grand marshals of the Memorial Day Parade in Albany. Neither was a veteran, but their exposure of wrongdoing earned them the honor.