Colleges Struggle With Voter Registration

[Khephra]

CHICAGO -- Young Han tried to register to vote in the New York town where he attends college but got a letter telling him to cast an absentee ballot where his parents live, more than 2,000 miles away. In Virginia, Luther Lowe and Serene Alami were told much the same -- their campus addresses at the College of William & Mary were deemed "temporary."

With so much emphasis on getting young people to the polls this election, the issue of where college students can register to vote is getting more attention. And some students -- who believe they should have the right to vote where they live most of the year -- are getting organized.

snip......

Han spent the summer interning in Washington, D.C., where he met Lowe and other students who share his cause. They formed the grass-roots Student Voting Rights Campaign.

Now the group is calling for a "day of action" on Sept. 23, urging students to register en masse -- even if they meet with resistance.

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-college-town-voting,0,5081331.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

[Gothmog]

1. My son is now in Martin Frost's district

My son is going to move his voter registration so that he can vote for Martin Frost. If he votes abstinee his vote will be meaningless in that the repug in our home district is running almost unopposed.

[davsand]

2. Local students have always faced opposition.

I am not shocked to hear it is going on other places, but I AM surprised that it has taken this long to get an organized student movement.

Our students here locally have been dienfranchised for as long as I can remember, however, they seem to have all graduated by the time the local County Clerk comes up for re-election. It makes it difficult to get him out of office because the "townies" really could care less if the "college kids" vote (in fact, some feel students should NOT be allowed to vote in local elections at all.)

Go students!!! Stand up for your right to vote!!!!


Laura

[LiberalFighter]

3. Need to check case law on that...

I remember that there were challenges to college students voting where they attend school and the courts ordered the students to be allowed to be registered.


A quick check...
Virginia requires residency

Missouri permits out of state college students to vote if they relinquish voting rights at previous state.


Oneida County Board Of Elections Urged To Allow Students To Vote In Their College Community

“Federal court precedent prohibits election officials from denying college students the right to register to vote in the communities where they attend school,” says Arthur Eisenberg, Legal Director of the NYCLU. “Students, like all other voters, must be permitted to vote in the communities in which they have their greatest immediate contacts. For most students, that community is their college town.”

The Oneida County Board of Elections has sent a form letter to college students who have attempted to register to vote where they are attending college. The letter basically tells college students to vote as residents of their parental home. In a letter cosigned by the Brennan Center and NYPIRG, the NYCLU cites three precedents ignored by the Board of Elections.


Local officials cannot deny an applicant the right to register to vote because he or she is a student or resides in a college dormitory.

Elected officials must apply the same standards for determining voting residency to students as it does for non-students.

The “only constitutionally permissible test” for voting residency is one that focuses on the individual’s present intentions; the objective is to determine where the center of the individual’s life is now.

[davsand]

4. Locals circumvent the law.

No matter what the intent of the law is, locals can get around them. What we have seen locally is a pattern of lost voter registrations and tactics designed to frustrate student participation.

To cite an example, the local College Dems registered close to 1500 students at Quad Day (an event held every fall on the local campus quadrangle to showcase student organizations and activities.) When they took the registrations to the Champaign County Clerk to turn them in he told them that the forms they'd been given to register voters back in the first part of this year are no longer valid ones--that all the registrations were not going to be honored.

They are now in the process of contacting those kids and getting them to RE-register with new forms.

Every election we have the same situation where the County Clerk puts Election Judges in the campus (and minority!) precincts that challenge voters trying to prevent them from voting. They FORCE those kids to prove they have the right to vote--and frankly, not many people are up to that level of fight just so they can VOTE.

He doesn't put enough ballots in those same precincts so that people are forced to wait for new ballots to arrive.

They frequently lack enough voting booths.

I could go on--but I think you get my drift here--the locals can make it VERY difficult for college kids to access the polls, and even if there are laws stating kids should have the right to vote, it does little good.

Our local Dem party has tried any number of times to keep this from happening--even to the point of court challenges and keeping flying teams of Attorneys on call for Election Day problems--but it still has not changed the fact that the local County Clerk is messing with those kids' right to vote.

I spoke at a County Board meeting urging the County Board to form an election commission to REMOVE control of elections from this County Clerk--and it was not supported by enough Board members to pass.

I have been out front on this issue locally, and the biggest problem we face is kids graduate and nobody REMEMBERS the next time around when the clerk is up for Re-election. It happens all over again. Plus, many of the locals don't CARE if those kids vote--they still see our college kids as cash cows but not REALLY part of the community.

I've tried a couple of times now to get this rat bastard of a County Clerk out of here--and I haven't been able to get it done yet. Hell, even our state election commission hasn't really been much help--and in the meantime we have an entire group of voters who are being raped by the system EVERY time they go to the polls.

I am angry as hell about this entire mess locally--and I am happy as can be to see college kids organizing on the issue. MAYBE they can develop an institutional memory for the college campuses. MAYBE this will solve the problem of kids graduation and nobody remembering what is happening.


Laura