Long Island officials said Tuesday they want to move polling sites out of their schools after Gov. Cuomo granted voting rights to parolees who include sex offenders.
The ex-cons are required to advise their parole officers where they plan to vote and must then get permission from both the officer and the school, if that’s their local polling place.
But some school officials testified at a state Senate hearing in Hicksville, L.I. that they were never notified.
“We should have every kind of notification so that we can prepare. It’s not right,” said Jennifer Morrison, superintendent of schools in New Hyde Park.
“It’s very frightening. This is where we protect our children and we won’t welcome in any random person in this day and age.”
She added:
“Every single day no one is permitted to enter the building without first showing visitor identification. On polling days when children are present , we are required to leave doors unlocked and we are not allowed to require visitors to present identification which poses significant safety concerns.”
Schools have visitor identification systems, security guards, security cameras, and locked front doors but all those measures are pushed aside on voting day.
James Reddan, corresponding secretary of the New Hyde Park Memorial High School, said the issue is personal for him.
“For me personally, I have two daughters and a son. To allow a sexual predator the ability to walk around a school property and give them the opportunity to harm a child… I want them to stay away from our schools,” he said.
Michael Nagler, Superintendent of Mineola schools, said polling booths don’t belong on school grounds in the first place.
He said elections in his district were isolated to a single classroom with an exterior door. But even that didn’t stop someone from slipping into a bathroom and smearing feces all over the walls.
“The security guard took a break and someone found their way in,” Nagler said. “Even when you try to isolate it completely it doesn’t always work.”
“We don’t have a position on parolees voting or not voting. Our position is school security and whether or not we’re letting people in. if were trying to follow rules to keep our kids safe, those rules should apply every day all the time.”
State law generally bars sex offenders from appearing on school grounds — with a few exceptions. One is being a “participant” in an activity at the school, the law says.
The state Department of Correctional Services created a special rule allowing parolees who are sexual offenders to enter schools for voting — but only after after 7 p.m., when classes and activities have ended in most schools.
Tyrone Stevens, a spokesperson for Gov. Cuomo, responded:
“Let’s be very clear: These hearings are nothing more than an election-year stunt by the Senate Republicans, and we’re not going to be their props. As we’ve previously said, the parole board has made decisions that we’ve disagreed with, but as the Senate Republicans know full well, this is an independent board, every member of which the Republican Senate have confirmed. If they really wanted to protect New Yorkers, they should dispense with the fear mongering and pass the Child Victims Act.”
