UAlbany protest called political grandstanding by election official



GUILDERLAND — Community activists and students got together yesterday morning at the University at Albany to protest what they called a violation of the Equal Protection Clause by the Albany County Board of Elections.

A handful of protesters and students said the board of elections would not allow hundreds of UAlbany students to vote in the November elections.
Albany County Board of Elections Commission John Graziano described the event as political grandstanding and said the board "supports and encourages students to vote."
"There was a candidate who came forward to us and he feels he wanted to make this an issue," Graziano said yesterday. "There’s nobody being denied the right to vote."

The candidate Graziano spoke of is Anton Konev who originally sought a Democratic primary challenge against Mary Lou B. Connolly for a seat on the Albany County Legislature, but his petition signatures were challenged and he fell short of the needed number of names. He enrolled as a Democrat and is now running on the Republican ticket against Connolly.

Connolly currently represents District 32, covering parts of eastern Guilderland.

Konev, who describes himself as community activist and is a UAlbany graduate, currently finishing a master’s degree there, helped orchestrate the protest and he said the university and the board of elections acted on the situation only after he and other activists made the matter known to the public.
"This board of elections has been a huge headache since day one," Konev told The Enterprise after the protest. "The board was not processing forms from rightfully registered students"forms that did not have a post-office box."

He said the protest has nothing to do with politics and added that he has been helping students register since he was an undergraduate at the school.

Graziano said the Albany County Board of Elections has had a long-standing relationship with the university and that the post-office-box requirements were created in the mid-1990s in order to better serve student voters.
"The Albany city line runs right through the Dutch Quad," Graziano said of one of four main dormitory buildings on campus. The Indian Quad is in the town of Guilderland and the other quads are in the city of Albany. "So you have a Guilderland district and an Albany district on campus and, in order for them to vote properly, we need to find them"We need that P.O. box number."
Graziano said that voters are not being disenfranchised. They are only put on "an inactive list" if they cannot be found on campus, but can still vote in November, he said.
"It’s a system we worked out in the 1990s"It makes it much easier on the city and it makes it much easier on the SUNY people who collect mail and have to find these students," Graziano said. "We encourage them to vote and we encourage them to register."

The board of elections also said that, even if students are not on the list when they go to their polling stations on campus, they will be able to sign an affidavit and vote on a paper ballot.

Other activists and politicians who joined the protest included: Albany Councilman Corey Ellis; Merton Simpson of the Albany Chapter of Blacks in Government; District 2 Albany County Legislator candidate Lester Freeman; former UAlbany Student Association Vice President Guillermo Martinez, who is also a spokesman for Assemblyman Peter Rivera, a Democrat from the Bronx; as well as representatives from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Konev, who works for Rivera as a legislative assistant, applauded the university for "stepping up" and addressing the problem. Other activists said much more is needed and these situations should not occur in the first place.
"It’s unconscionable that the flagship campus of the SUNY system"would disenfranchise their students," Simpson said during the rally, calling it "an all-time low to disenfranchise our future leaders."
Martinez said "The students on this campus did not come here to lose their Constitutional rights"It’s about time we focus our attention on the evils of the board of elections."

He added that, if students are turned away at the polls litigation is possible.

The university said it was made aware of the situation on Tuesday and confirmed that the school does work with the board of elections on registering students.
"The University at Albany is aware that approximately 80 student voter registration forms were incomplete when filed with the Albany County Board of Elections in August," said the university’s director of media relations, Karl Luntta. "We are working with the board, as we consistently do, to correct the situation and ensure that these registration forms are complete and that the students are registered to vote in the upcoming election."

One UAlbany student said he felt he was being denied his right to vote.
"I’ve been able to register for the past two years without any problems," said UAlbany junior Brian Mascaro. "This is kind of ridiculous."

Mascaro said that, even though there were no registration problems in the past, he did have other problems.
"During my freshman year I lived on the Indian Quad," he said of a dormitory in Guilderland, "but I voted on the Dutch Quad," which is half in Albany.
Mascaro said he is enrolled as a Democrat and has been active on the campus, trying to register other students. He said it was hard enough getting students to vote without the "hassles" and regulations put forth by the board of elections.
"You’d be surprised how many people on this campus don’t care about voting," Mascaro said. "Sometimes people will say ‘Get that clipboard out of my face,’ when you approach them."

Mascaro said he only wants to exercise his civic right to vote with or without having listed a post office box, and, as a college student, that means voting on campus.