For First Time in 20 Years, Purdue Won’t Have Election Day Polling Place on Campus

The campus clock tower of Purdue University can be seen from Ross-Aide Stadium during a NCAA Football game between the Minnesota Golden Gophers against the Purdue Boilermakers on Saturday, October 10, 2015 in West Lafayette, Indiana. (Scott Boehm/AP)

Purdue University in Indiana will not have an Election Day polling place this year. The Tippecanoe County Election Board decided not to hold one, even though the campus has had one during the last four presidential elections.

“This is an overt attempt to suppress the student vote in Tippecanoe County,” Julia Vaughn, executive director of Common Cause Indiana, told Democracy Docket on Friday.

Vaughn said she knows this is voter suppression because of the board’s previous actions that have also made it harder for young people to vote.

In early 2022, the county election board required first-time voters to provide additional proof of residency if their voter registration forms were returned in person on their behalf, even though Indiana law only requires this for voters who return their applications by mail.

In July 2022, Common Cause Indiana and the League of Women Voters of Greater Lafayette filed a complaint with the Indiana Elections Division challenging the board’s policy. The state elections division issued an order in January, saying that Tippecanoe County violated state and federal law and that it would ensure that wrongly flagged voter registrations would be rectified.

Last month, the board announced the county’s polling places for the 2024 election, and notably, there wasn’t one on Purdue’s campus. 

The county election board said at a meeting last Friday that this decision was due to a lower voter registration rate among Purdue students — it decreased from almost 7,000 in 2020 to around 3,000 in 2024. However, they reported this year’s number with a week left until the registration deadline.

This is a departure from the board’s previous policies — which established polling locations on campus for the past four presidential elections. In 2020, early voting and Election Day voting were held at the Mackey Arena — where the school’s basketball teams play.

“It’s really disturbing, given their history [of] making student voters have to jump through extra hoops in order to register and now making them go to extraordinary lengths to cast a ballot on Election Day. It certainly looks purposeful,” Vaughn said.

Democracy Docket reached out to the county election board for comment on Friday.

On Sept. 17, Purdue released a statement saying that the university is “making various Purdue sites, including the Armory and Recreational Sports Center, available for further consideration by the Board.” 

After facing public backlash and pressure from the university, the board approved an on-campus polling location during the early voting period. Students can vote at the Córdova Recreational Sports Center on Oct. 24 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“It’s a crumb,” Vaughn said. “And I think it’s obviously in response to criticism that they’ve received — pressure that is coming from students, faculty and community members. I’m not sure they’re going to ease their stance. It is inadequate at best.”

Last Friday, Purdue issued another statement, saying that the university “appreciates” the addition of the new voting site for early voting, but has “submitted an official application to the Election Board” asking them to make the recreational center a polling place on Election Day, too.

Vaughn said the deadline to make changes to polling places in Indiana is Oct. 7, but there has been precedent to make changes after that date in special circumstances and “local election administrators have a lot of leeway.”

She also explained that while some students vote absentee in their home districts, many of them, especially first-time voters, utilize in-person voting on Election Day. There is a voting site on Nov. 5 at the West Lafayette City Hall, but it’s a long walk from the heart of campus.

She said this is especially impactful for freshmen, who aren’t allowed to have cars on campus, and students with disabilities. 

Vaughn noted that Indiana had low voter turnout in recent elections, and that needs to change. She said that the county election board should make it easier for voters to cast their ballots, not harder, especially for people doing it for the first time.

“If you disappoint somebody the first time they try to do something, it’s extremely hard to try to get them to do it again,” Vaughn said. “Frustrating a voter is the very best way to make sure they become a non-voter.”