The Satellite Student Union will host a polling location for today’s special election, with dorm residents and some voters from the surrounding community eligible to vote at the site, according to the CSUN office of governmental affairs.

CSUN recently learned that the Los Angeles County registrar’s office had expanded the SSU’s voting precinct, allowing both local residents in close proximity to the school and students from the University Park Apartments to vote at the SSU, according to Dorena Knepper, director of governmental affairs at CSUN.

As is sometimes the case with special elections, the voting precinct was adjusted to match available state resources. For the 2003 recall election, CSUN lost its SSU voting location, Knepper said. CSUN found out about the precinct changes by accident, she said, as the governmental affairs office was setting up parking for poll workers.

Knepper was informed that the polling location would also serve non-dorm residents, which she said could have produced difficulty because of the Department of Public Safety’s policies regarding mandatory paid parking permits in every campus parking lot.

Knepper said she was able to get parking officials to lift the parking permit policy for three lots surrounding the SSU, located on Zelzah Avenue at Lassen Street, allowing area residents to come to campus to vote not to be charged what could be considered a “poll tax.”

“You either have to provide parking for free or you’ll lose your precinct,” she said.

CSUN dorm residents eligible to vote at the SSU must be registered in the area, which many are because they change their permanent addresses once moving to the dorms.

Ryan Denham can be reached at editor@csun.edu.