Establishes no polling place shall be located on the premises of any public or private elementary or secondary school or a school for preschool children.
STATE OF NEW YORK
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6153
2025-2026 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
February 26, 2025
___________
Introduced by M. of A. DURSO -- read once and referred to the Committee
on Election Law
AN ACT to amend the election law, in relation to establishing no school
shall serve as a polling place
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivision 3 of section 4-104 of the election law, as
2 amended by chapter 694 of the laws of 1989, is amended and a new subdi-
3 vision 7-a is added to read as follows:
4 3. A building exempt from taxation shall be used whenever possible as
5 a polling place if it is situated in the same or a contiguous election
6 district, and may contain as many distinctly separate polling places as
7 public convenience may require. The expense, if any, incidental to its
8 use, shall be paid like the expense of other places of registration and
9 voting. [If a board or body empowered to designate polling places choos-
10 es a public school building for such purpose, the board or agency which
11 controls such building must make available a room or rooms in such
12 building which are suitable for registration and voting and which are as
13 close as possible to a convenient entrance to such building and must
14 make available any such room or rooms which the board or body designat-
15 ing such building determines are accessible to physically disabled
16 voters as provided in subdivision one-a.] Notwithstanding the provisions
17 of any general, special or local law, if a board or body empowered to
18 designate polling places chooses a publicly owned or leased building[,
19 other than a public school building,] for such purposes the board or
20 body which controls such building must make available a room or rooms in
21 such building which are suitable for registration and voting and which
22 are as close as possible to a convenient entrance to such building, and
23 must make available any such room or rooms which the board or body
24 designating such building determines are accessible to physically disa-
25 bled voters unless, not later than thirty days after notice of its
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD01643-01-5
A. 6153 2
1 designation as a polling place, the board or body controlling such
2 building, files a written request for a cancellation of such designation
3 with the board or body empowered to designate polling places on such
4 form as shall be provided by the board or body making such designation.
5 The board or body empowered to so designate shall, within twenty days
6 after such request is filed, determine whether the use of such building
7 as a polling place would unreasonably interfere with the usual activ-
8 ities conducted in such building and upon such determination, may cancel
9 such designation.
10 7-a. No polling place shall be located on the premises of any public
11 or private elementary or secondary school or a school for preschool
12 children, as that term is defined in paragraph i of subdivision one of
13 section forty-four hundred ten of the education law.
14 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
