Our right to vote is one of the fundamental pillars of American democracy. The ballot box is a powerful tool: it amplifies our voices, holds the powerful accountable, and induces change in our society—and so it saddens me when I see my neighbors’ opportunities to vote restricted or denied. Every person legally able to vote should be able to cast a ballot.
That’s why a change is necessary in Hays.
Some tactics to limit our vote are obvious and intentional, while others are subtle or unintended—but the result of silencing someone’s voice is the same. This frequently impacts college students, and in our local example here in Hays, we have seen this in our polling location access
For four years or more, students are not just visitors to our community, but members of it. They live in the community. They pay taxes and contribute to our local economy, and they should have a voice in their community's decisions that affect everyone.
While I was a faculty member at Fort Hays State University, I was part of a group advocating for a polling place nearer to the FHSU campus. Voters had to walk to downtown Hays to reach the nearest polling site instead of the excellent, walkable locations on or close to campus that would have better served not only those students but other residents in the southwest quadrant of Hays. When I lived in Hays, I voted at the VFW and could not have walked there from my house, but many of our students do not have access to transportation, not to mention anyone who may have physical mobility challenges.
I see that since my departure from FHSU in 2017, things have only gotten worse for the students. There are five polling locations within the city limits today. The closest one to campus is more than a mile away and a 28-minute walk, which takes students to Messiah Lutheran Church. When we see all the polling locations: Smoky Hill Country Club, Hays Recreation Center, the VFW, Sternberg Museum and Messiah, there is a noticeable pattern of polling locations clustered towards the north and east of the city, some nearly an hour’s walk from FHSU campus.
When I read that students participating in the American Democracy Project, Grace McCord and Madison Albers, were advocating to move a polling place closer to campus last year, I was thrilled. Madison and Grace have already been recognized by President Tisa Mason for their outstanding leadership and dedication to encouraging access to the ballot for students. Sadly, Ellis County Clerk Bobbi Dreiling has responded similarly to her predecessors and appears to be disinterested in righting this significant wrong. Dreiling correctly notes that when the polling place was slightly closer to campus (601 Main Street) turnout was lower than at other precincts in the community. However, at nearly one mile and a 20-minute walk from campus during the warm months of election season in Kansas, it’s inaccurate to say that the location was convenient or close. And as McCord points out in a March letter to Hays Post with Edward Brown and Anniston Weber, the decision to take a low-turnout precinct and make the polling place less accessible is a decision that boggles the mind.
If Dreiling is truly worried about low voter turnout, then there are other things she and her office can do to be a better partner to FHSU and its students. In my new home in Virginia, our city’s Registrar of Elections (the equivalent to Dreiling’s position in Ellis County) is a member of our campus voter team and has actively advocated for enhanced student turnout.
We face the same issues with students being in multiple precincts across a small community, but our local office coordinates with us on registering students and is working with us to make voting more convenient for everyone. I strongly urge Dreiling to do the same. Our registrar of elections has a city elections board that must approve every decision (including that of polling place locations) whereas the Ellis County Clerk has the autonomy to make that decision themselves. It’s time to make voting more accessible, not less, in Hays America. We have seen a significant increase in student voting over the last three cycles, and much of that can be attributed to working together towards our common goal, not as adversaries.
And as Dreiling herself notes, this isn’t just about FHSU students. Some of those students are in other precincts in town, and plenty of Hays residents who are not FHSU students live in the southwestern quadrant of town. The location of polling places can disenfranchise them as much as the students.
I can only hope that these great young people will have more success than we were able to have when we tried in the mid-2000’s. If we are to really call ourselves a community, then every legal resident deserves to have access to a nearby polling place so they can use their political voice.
For my friends and former colleagues in Hays, I urge you to support the efforts of the FHSU students lobbying to bring a polling place to the Fort Hays campus. Small communities and their colleges need each other, and a polling place at FHSU would be a real sign of the commitment Hays has to being that special type of city that welcomes and values its students – and believes in an accessible and equitable democracy.
Chapman Rackaway is chairman and professor of political science at Radford University. From 2003 to 2017, Rackaway was a faculty member at Fort Hays State University.