WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University students enrolled in spring semester 2008 will be able to use their student identification cards to vote in Tuesday’s (May 6) Indiana primary, thanks to the university’s Registrar’s Office and the Tippecanoe County clerk.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday voted 6-3 to uphold Indiana’s law, one of the nation’s strictest, requiring individuals to present picture identifications at the precincts in order to vote. The law also requires expiration dates on the identifications, and no expiration date is contained on the Purdue ID card.
“We have some students who do not have driver’s licenses or other forms of ID that wouldn’t have been able to vote on Tuesday,” said Rich Wells, assistant comptroller of collections.
Purdue and Tippecanoe County Clerk Linda Phillips came up with a solution for Tuesday. The registrar’s office, which controls student information, will provide a disk to the one polling precinct on campus — in Room 118 of Purdue Memorial Union — and three other precincts near campus. The clerk’s office will have laptop computers at each of these sites to verify student information. The students must have been enrolled during spring semester 2008.
A disk also will be sent to the clerk’s office, which will allow students to use their Purdue ID cards at any polling site in the county. Poll workers at those sites would call the clerk’s office to verify information.
“The disks Purdue will provide contain directory information that does not include sensitive data,” Wells said. “Students who have asked that their directory information be restricted will not be included.”
The other West Lafayette precincts at which laptops will be placed are: at Morton Community Center, 222 N. Chauncey St; Federated Church, 2400 Sycamore Lane; and the Klondike branch of the Tippecanoe County Public Library, 3062 Lindberg Road.
Polling stations open at 6 a.m. Tuesday and close at 6 p.m.
