VOTING 101
Haverford College students pressure Delco Election Board for polling place on campus
MEDIA » Individuals interested in seeing a polling place opened at Haverford College filed a brief with the Delaware County Bureau of Elections Tuesday, ahead of the board’s meeting scheduled for Sept. 24.
“It’s a mess, it’s a mess,” said Jack Stollsteimer, a Haverford attorney who is one of the petitioners, referring to having the polling place for Haverford’s Fifth Ward, Third Precinct at Coopertown Elementary rather than on the campus of Haverford College. “It makes no sense at all. There’s just no logical reason.”
A group of petitioners filed a brief stating that the polling place should be changed to the facilities conference/training room (Room 114A) of the Facilities Management Building at Haverford College.
First, their brief states, Pennsylvania statute maintains that the polling place should be located within the voting district, stating that
63 percent of the county’s polling places are within the geographic boundaries of the precinct. Coopertown Elementary is in the Fifth Ward, Fourth Precinct.
“A majority of the voters residing in Haverford 5-3 are students at Haverford College and the vast majority of these voters lack a personal means of transport to the polls,” the brief stated, adding that it is dangerous and time-consuming to walk to Coopertown from the Haverford College campus.
To assist with that, members of the college community have organized an Election Day van transport for students in prior elections.
“I’ve driven vans for the last three elections,” said Zach Oberfield, professor of political science at Haverford College. “In a presidential year election, we have
600 students who need to get over to Coopertown ... We start at 8 a.m. We basically run it all day for 12 hours.”
He explained that the vans fit eight to 12 students, who board the vans at an appointed place monitored by faculty and student members.
“We’ve come to a place where it works,” Oberfield said. “It would be a lot more efficient for students if it were on campus. We’re trying to work with what we have. I think in terms of getting to the polling place, it’s an inconvenience.”
Secondly, the brief states that the Haverford College location is suitable and available at no cost to the county.
At the May Election Board meeting, concerns arose that Haverford College is a private university. Petitioners maintain that 61 percent of the county’s polling places are in public locations while the remaining 39 percent are in private locations, including Neumann University, coffee shops, corporate offices, retirement communities, a pharmacy, funeral homes, a car dealership, a monument showroom, a gas station and a painting studio.
They also say the college location is the most logical location for the Fifth Ward, Third Precinct.
“(A) majority of Haverford 5-3’s registered voters, faculty as well as students, reside on or in the immediate vicinity of the campus of Haverford College,” the brief states, adding that many of the students do not own their own cars. “(T)he failure to locate the polling location for this precinct in a manner to facilitate voter participation is inconsistent with the past practice of the Board of Elections with respect to other populations with limited access to transportation either by virtue of age or infirmity.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” said Francis Catania, solicitor for the Board of Elections said. “The Election Board has to make these decisions all the time ... They’ve consistently made decisions on what’s the best for all voters, all the voters.”
He explained part of the Election Board’s decisionmaking process, adding that handicapped access and parking is important, as is the lack of complaints about a facility.
“Our first obligation under the law is to use public buildings,” Catania said. “It’s not out of the ordinary to have it at a private location. Our first priority is to have it at a public facility.”
Catania said the polling place has been at Coopertown for Haverford’s Fifth Ward, Third Precinct since 2001. In 2006, the board received a request to move it to the college, followed by a 2009 request to move it to the Haverford Friends Meetinghouse and then a request last year to move it to the college. In May, the request to move it to the college surfaced again.
Of Coopertown, Catania said, “We’ve never had problems with it there. We’ve never had complaints about it.”
He said if a polling place is functioning for all the voters, the board takes their time to take a careful look at it, as they do for any of the county’s 426 precincts.
Petitioners for the move also reference support from Haverford College.
In their brief, they included a March 9 letter from Kimberly W. Benston, president of Haverford College, supporting the move.
“This change will serve not only the majority of voters in the 5-3 precinct, who
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