Metroland

July 26, 2004

An Education in Intimidation:Skidmore student voters hit a roadblock to political participation
by Ashley Hahn

The run-up to Saratoga Springs��� elections may have seemed ugly, but apparently that was just the beginning.

After the polls closed on Nov. 4, almost all of the city���s races were close enough to be significantly swayed by absentee and affidavit ballots. And this year, there are an awful lot of affidavits. They came mostly from Skidmore College���s voting district, where 300 student voters were challenged by a Republican poll watcher.

Matt Dill, a campaign volunteer for Republican mayoral candidate Mike Lenz, arrived at the on-campus polling center armed with a list of students he believed did not reside on campus and therefore should not vote in that district.

���We had been instructed . . . that whenever we���re registering just to take 815 N. Broadway [the school���s street address],��� said sophomore Sara Kunz, president of the Skidmore Progressives. ���It was never a question of who lived off campus. It���s never been an issue before.���

When voters are challenged, they must reaffirm their eligibility by signing two oaths: one swearing their residency, and one acknowledging that any false statements could make them guilty of perjury. Many students found Dill���s approach and delivery threatening, and many witnesses contend he created an environment of intimidation that effectively discouraged students from voting.

���I really felt I was kind of being attacked,��� said senior Chloe Waters, an off-campus resident and politically active student. ���I was honestly trying to figure out who to trust, who was who, and what I should do.���

���To me, everything in that environment discouraged voting,��� said Nancy Goldberg, a Democratic elections inspector working at Skidmore that day. ���It was crowded with not Republicans, but Republican operatives.���

���Matt Dill was questioning students before they got to the registration table,��� she said. And according to her, Dill was saying ���You know, I���m challenging you. You have to sign an oath. If you sign an oath falsely, the district attorney will prosecute you for perjury.���

���I know a student that���s on social probation and felt like they couldn���t hand in that affidavit form if there was possibility they would be charged with perjury,��� said Kunz. ���They thought they���d get kicked out of school.���

���I witnessed the most disgusting and blatant form of voter intimidation I have ever seen,��� said resident Philip Diamond in a statement to the city council the day after the elections. ���I witnessed Republican poll watchers stand within proximity to the entrance door to the Skidmore voting venue and systematically intimidate prospective voters by threats of expulsion from college and/or criminal prosecution leading to incarceration. I witnessed many of these voters turn away out of fear and intimidation, rather than complete the voting process.���

Dill began the day as an elections inspector, but later resigned as inspector, produced his poll-watcher certification, and made his challenges as a watcher.

���This is the second time the county Republican organization, this time with a paid consultant, organized a voter- intimidation campaign of students,��� said one city official. ���If it wasn���t intimidation of students then why wasn���t this done at any other polling place in the city? It���s very self-evident.��� The county Republican chairman did not return Metroland���s calls.

State Supreme Court Judge Stephen A. Ferradino did rule, at 3 PM on Election Day, that students living in the off-campus dorm, Moore Hall, could vote by affidavit in district 24.

Skidmore likely was targeted because it is a Democratic stronghold in a Republican town, and many people don���t seem to appreciate the influence of the student vote on local elections. In 2001, Skidmore was the determining factor in Democratic public works commissioner Tom McTygue���s win. Local Republicans, led by accounts commissioner Stephen Towne, responded by trying to redistrict and have the polling place moved off campus.

���Instead of campaigning to kids, who they���re not going to get, they recognize, ���We���re not going to get them���fine, we���re just going to stop them from voting,������ said senior Ezra Selove. To Selove, this is part of a calculated effort to diminish voter turnout, which would justify paying less attention to students.

This election, however, Republican candidates did make a concerted effort to canvass the campus. ���For some reason, I made the naive assumption that because they were campaigning here they wouldn���t challenge us,��� said Selove, who has done voter-registration drives since he was a freshman. His vote was challenged because, according to Dill���s list, he was apparently on leave, which he has never been.

Behind these shenanigans may have been the former executive director of the state Republican Party, Brendan Quinn, who had been employed to do what some call ���ballot security��� in Saratoga. Quinn works as a political consultant for Saratoga and Albany counties, but gained notoriety for being among those leading the charge against the recount in Florida in 2000.

A city official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said he ran into Quinn outside Skidmore���s polling place, and accused Quinn of using the same ���suppress-the-vote tactics��� he employed in Florida. Quinn���s reply: ���It worked, didn���t it?���