By Tia Porter and Summer Tyler

At Purchase, the polls for the 2026 midterm elections opened at 6 a.m. for anyone in the community to step into the Student Services building and cast their votes. Only a few hours in, around 11 a.m., poll workers began turning voters away due to a lack of affidavit ballots.

“The normal process is an affidavit ballot,” said Chris Eversole, who works to manage the Purchase New York Public Interest Research Group (NYPIRG), “but of course, we have no affidavit ballots here, so they have to be turned away and come back later, and that’s a whole process. It’s not really the way it’s supposed to be done, so you know, we’re trying to figure it out.”

​

Sometimes people who are registered to vote are unable to fill out a regular ballot because, for whatever reason, their name is not listed at their designated polling place. In this case, they are typically able to fill out an affidavit ballot, so their vote can still be counted.

​

Normally, these votes could be processed with a machine. However, election sites all over the Westchester community had been experiencing issues with the voting machines since the early morning, when these systems seemed to be rejecting ballots. This forced voters to fill out physical paper ballots, which would be collected in a secure bag.

​

“My volunteers have reported to me that there have been numerous students concerned with the status of the machines,” Eversole said. “It’s certainly concerning to many of the people who are here, including the election workers. We have no idea, really, what caused it as far as I understand, and also as far as I understand, it’s the entire county of Westchester that is dealing with this, so it’s kind of a madhouse trying to figure out.”

​

From late morning to early afternoon, the line to vote extended out of the Red Room to the front door of Student Services. Many students, whose only option to vote would have been an affidavit, were told that they’d have to wait until more ballots arrived or vote elsewhere.

​

“I heard a few people in front of me, they ran out of ballots, so I was like, ‘I’m just gonna get out of line, so I don’t waste the time of the people behind me,’” said junior communications major Danielle Wozniak. “It’s my first time voting, and I’m gonna come back later today, because that’s what they said to do anyways.”

​

NYPIRG volunteers reported that several students had approached them, concerned with the status of their votes; a few said that they weren’t comfortable doing the paper ballot, and they felt the process was very dissuading.

​

“It’s just kinda weird that the machines died on the final day of the election,” said Renzo Romero Ramos, a creative writing senior who drove up to Purchase to vote. “I was like, ‘I don’t know if I can trust this. I would still go out and vote, even if the machines were down.’”

​

Students also expressed frustration with the many obstacles they faced when trying to vote on campus, and how voting this time around was different than in previous years.

​

Nick Russo, a senior double majoring in political science and law & justice studies, said, “I noticed they had these red bags, and you had to fold your ballot up after and put it inside the secure bag. I know in the past, when I’ve voted on campus, we’ve usually put it in the machine, so today it’s not working, but I know all of Westchester is having issues with voter machines.”

​

NYPIRG member, Francisca Schmalz, explained how she called the Election Protection hotline after hearing about student voters being turned away from voting in Student Services.

​

Schmalz said, “It’s been very frustrating today to see a lot of student voters that I know personally helped register, and I know my team here at NYPIRG has helped register. That’s what our focus is in the fall; we try to register as many students as we can every semester.”

​

At around 5:30 p.m., affidavit ballots were delivered to Student Services, hours before the polls closed at 9 p.m. Students still on campus after being unable to fill out their ballots earlier were encouraged to return to the Red Room and cast their votes.

​

An official statement released by the New York State Board of Elections clarified that issues with voting machines resulted from an update to the county’s election programming. There were machines throughout the county that continued to operate with the original programming, which prevented them from accepting new ballots.

​

“Students have a right to vote,” Schmalz said. “Students deserve to vote. Students need to vote.”