A 6153: 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 ________________________________________________________________________ 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.