<p>As an election judge in a precinct abutting our state’s flagship university, I can says that the sad reality is that so few students turn out to vote that this is largely a non-issue. We probably had the best turnout ever in 2008, but the mid-term elections in November reverted to the normal pattern of very, very few voters of college age.</p>
<p>arabrab,
You’re absolutely right. Student non-voting—and more generally, youth non-voting—is a much more serious problem than student bloc voting. Those who say, “Just get an absentee ballot and vote in your hometown” are being deliberately obtuse to the fact that this additional barrier will mean far fewer students vote at all, at a time when student voting rates are already extremely low. But I suspect that’s the intended result. The partisan motivations are pretty transparent. It saddens me, though, to think how feeble must be the commitment to democracy of those who would deliberately manipulate voting rules to disenfranchise groups of voters who hold views contrary to their own.</p>
<p>A group with ties to the Koch brothers is behind all this (ALEC - The American Legislative Exchange Council) - they have drafted model legislation for student disenfranchisement (and have been active in other disenfranchisement attempts for years) and many states that have had a recent change in party leadership are picking up the cause.
[Conservative</a> Corporate Advocacy Group ALEC Behind Voter Disenfranchisement Efforts - Campus Progress](<a href=“Home - Generation Progress Generation Progress”>Home - Generation Progress Generation Progress)
VERY informative article - highly recommend.</p>
<p>Corporations and the uber-rich are not exactly pro-democracy, as alluded to by the poster just above me.</p>
<p>^^
The Koch brothers are also bankrolling the assault on unions in Wisconsin.</p>
<p>Voting via absentee ballot is not always easy. Where I live, I had to take a morning off from work because you have to apply for an absentee ballot in person, or via a family member’s appearance in person. Coupling that with residency requirements for college students is just a way to keep 18 year olds from voting. </p>
<p>So long as 18 year olds must register for the draft, they should have the same right to vote as anyone else, with no additional administrative burden than anyone else.</p>
<p>And as soccerguy says, who doesn’t vote their feelings? If parents lose a child to war, it may turn them anti-war. Is that a feeling to disregard? I don’t think I want the government determining which of my feelings are valid, at which stage of my life.</p>
<p>Ultimately this law could come back and haunt NH … because I would bet in net that NH exports more college students than it imports … so if/when bordering states enact similar laws than NH will have a higher percentage of college age voters than it does now … however the law will have the desired affect until other states take similar action.</p>
<p>Conversely as a Mass resident a similar rule would actually lower the democractic vote here since we have so many OOS students.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine Vermont or Massachusetts considering anything like this. I don’t think that NH sends a lot of students to the universities in Maine.</p>
<p>“creating opportunities for fraud”</p>
<p>Notice that they aren’t claiming that there has been any fraud, or even allegations of fraud. This is, at best, about imaginary future fraud. So the question becomes whether that imaginary future fraud is less or more important than encouraging the engagement of young people in the political process. I guess if people vote the “wrong” way, then their political engagement becomes undesirable.</p>
<p>Former NH college student here… UNH '81 Alumna.
This has been an issue for decades. It was an issue when I was a college student in Durham back in the 70’s and early 80’s. UNH is the ‘problem’ (probably Dartmouth to a lesser degree). They get a lot of out of state students - typically from MA who bring their ‘liberal’ politics with them and frankly the old school NH Republicans don’t like it. In recent years, NH got more liberal - namely from relocated flatlanders but the tide has turned recently.
Back in the day, UNH always had a high voter turn out and all students were encouraged to vote.</p>
<p>Of course, this is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to disenfranchise a targeted group of voters. I can’t believe this is legal or will hold up in court.</p>
<p>I would be shocked if NH exported more college students than they import.</p>
<p>I fear for our country if young people become further disengaged from what’s going on around them. Students have a right to vote on local issues and for representatives that affect town-gown relations.</p>
<p>Also have to say that in my extended family, it’s the younger members who are more politically aware. None of my sibs vote. Drives me freakin’ nuts, because they are the first ones to complain about incompetent politicians, poor policies, etc. Even my brother who took tremendous advantage of the dislocated worker re-training opportunities and landed in a job he LOVES doesn’t vote. Like I said, it’s crazy-making.</p>
<p>LOL, I know I’m dating myself here, but I can actually remember a time when Ann Arbor was a Republican town. Then came the 26th Amendment granting 18-year-olds the right to vote, adopted in 1971 as part of President Nixon’s domestic pacification campaign in response to student anti-war activism, which Nixon hoped to channel into more conventional forms of political expression. Suddenly thousands of Michigan undergrads were registering to vote, and it transformed the political landscape overnight. Didn’t turn Ann Arbor into a Democratic stronghold immediately, though; as I recall there were a number of parties to the left of the Democrats, including one, the Human Rights Party, that for a time held the balance of power in the Ann Arbor City Council. This didn’t sit well with the good Republican burghers at the time; they unsuccessfully fought to force students to vote absentee in their districts-of-origin, but I suspect they would have been just as happy if the under-21s hadn’t been granted the right to vote at all. I really thought the issue was settled, but apparently not. I don’t think this would even be coming up if Obama hadn’t been so successful in mobilizing the youth vote in 2008. The surface arguments are all about local issues, but I think the money behind it really is just looking for ways to disenfranchise young people, and forcing college students to vote absentee would be almost as effective in that regard as going back to the 21-year-old minimum.</p>
<p>RE:
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.tnhonline.com/hb-176-not-an-attempt-to-disenfranchise-college-students-1.2018302[/url]”>http://www.tnhonline.com/hb-176-not-an-attempt-to-disenfranchise-college-students-1.2018302</a></p>
<p>Well, there are inconsistencies between residency for tax purposes, in-state tuition and voting. States generally require you to apportion income based on how much time you spend living in the state. College students generally don’t make enough to get to pay the interest and dividends tax.</p>
<p>Some students rent off-campus housing so you could argue that they should have a say in local elections. They indirectly pay property taxes.</p>
<p>Perhaps Universities should start paying property taxes - that way they could make an argument for the kids voting. There would be taxation with representation.</p>
<p>I have multiple residences but taxation without representation in some of them.</p>
<p>“a UNH freshman from another state has the same right to vote in local and state elections as a long-time, year-round tax-paying resident who sends his children to local schools and works in the Durham community.”</p>
<p>This is the same argument that was used to justify the poll tax, restricting the vote to property owners, and lots of other methods of disenfranchisement. </p>
<p>EVERY voter has a unique level of investment in the community and in each issue, but one person gets one vote anyway. People without kids get a say in how public schools are run, renters vote on property taxes, working people can control benefits to retirees, people in sprinklered houses help determine the fire department budget, and newcomers get the same voice as those whose ancestors founded the state. Silencing people who don’t have the same set of priorities we do can never be the answer to a political disagreement. Frankly, it’s un-American.</p>
<p>It is also un-American to bus hundreds of ill-informed voters to polls where they will pull a lever in return for a social experience with little information whatsoever about most of the candidates or issues on the ballots. </p>
<p>No one should pretend that the typical college student is in any way invested in the local community where his school is located. We all know what the truth is on this. I went to school at a typical LAC in a small town. I had no clue what was going on off campus and neither did any of my peers. I never thought of that place as home. Had I been bussed to a polling place to check boxes in return for a fun afternoon and some hamburgers, it would have been completely un-American in terms of demonstrating legitimate respect for what voting is supposed to be about. </p>
<p>People who truly respect democracy understand that the election process can be easily manipulated by those who put partisan whims ahead of ethics. Let’s encourage every college student to vote, just one time in each election, and in the location where they legitimately have the most knowledge of issues and the personal investment to care (i.e. home).</p>
<p>I am very suspicious about why anyone would advocate for any kind of voting which is less informed. Why not put the exact same amount of energy and effort into ensuring that every college student gets an absentee ballot? The real silencing that is going on here is voter manipulation. Absentee ballots would produce more educated voters rather that impulsive busses of lemmings being led by biased professors or campus activists. This is the wrong way to solve political disagreements or to advance one’s political agenda. The greatest thing we have in this country is our right to vote. Let’s not manipulate that.</p>
<p>it’s presumptuous to dictate to the youth where their home is. The home they identify with is not necessarily the home they grew up with their parents’ in. Would you too prefer that the assimilated American head back to his supposed home, Mexico?</p>
<p>And why should they necessarily be ill-informed. I didn’t care about City Council elections until someone told me I should care about them. Why? Because they affect nightspot policies, policies regarding the arts community and the scene, regarding the music community and its scene, businesses that work with architecture, arts, engineering and commerce students, among other things.</p>
<p>But maybe some people think us ill-informed because we are not apt to be as persuaded by some old guy saying we should save our college town’s family values or return it to some golden era or whatever.</p>
<p>frenchcoldplay
</p>
<p>You are funny. :)</p>
<p>Um, yeah sure. I guess I should be voting in Ireland. Damn, the plane fare is going to be expensive. How long will it take me to get my citizenship so that I can vote? </p>
<p>I think you might have missed my point, btw.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And, of course, there is no town in the US where seniors in nursing homes vote under the same circumstances. (That’s sarcastic, if you missed it.) Some of them are completely senile, but they still vote. </p>
<p>If the problem is that college kids are too inexperienced to vote, then raise the voting age to 21, as it once was. If the problem is that folks don’t know enough to vote, then while I’m vehemently opposed to the idea, give folks a test. Anyone who can’t name his congressional rep, both Senators from his state, and the capitol of the state can’t vote. I’ll bet the kids would do as well as their contemporaries who aren’t enrolled in college–but nobody is suggesting that the high school drop out in town can’t vote. I’ll bet too that most of them do as well as the rest of the population. </p>
<p>Only 20% of US citizens have passports. So, as a practical matter, if ID is required, for most people that will be a driver’s license. There are states which don’t offer non-driver driver’s licenses. As a practical matter, that means anyone who doesn’t drive won’t be able to vote in those states. Now, a few of these percentage wise will be people who can’t drive because of disabilities, e.g., paraplegics, those with uncontrolled epilepsy or, in some states, sky high blood pressure, etc. Others will have suspended licenses. Others will be folks who live in major cities like New York who don’t drive because there’s no need to and cars are expensive. But most will be elderly folks who have let their drivers’ licenses lapsed. </p>
<p>Plus, reality is that in many states, including New York, corruption in the DMV has been a major problem. LOTS of illegal aliens in New York and elsewhere DO have driver’s licenses.
And are we now going to put a designation on your driver’s license that states you aren’t a US citizen? There is no state in the union which requires that you be a US citizen to get a license. So how does a driver’s license prove citizenship? </p>
<p>But great, now we tell older folks to renew their licenses. So, we have people who shouldn’t be on the road continuing to renew their licenses so they can vote. And, if they do have a current license, they may be tempted to drive when they shouldn’t. </p>
<p>The truth is that if you require ID, the amount of fraud you will stop is a small fraction of the number of voters you will disenfranchise. There are a gazillion studies of this. The one I can recall was in a Midwestern city. Sociologists followed up with all those who were turned away at the polls. They found that over 99% of them were entitled to vote–they simply didn’t have ID. Some had birth certificates–but those are not photo IDs, so they weren’t good enough. </p>
<p>If you want to have a national identity card, then lets have a national identity card. Use that to vote. But guess who screams the loudest about the possibility of requiring a federally issued ID for everyone? The same folks who want to require ID to vote.</p>
<p>I’m probably one of the oldest folks on this board, but I think one of our real problems is that the voting population skews older than our population. We have to get Medicare costs under control–but ther’s Sarah Palin scaring people with mythical death panels; we should require vision checks to renew licenses and ban folks taking certain medications from driving–but in states with large elderly populations such measures are unpopular. We need to invest more money in education–but older taxpayers vote against school bond issues and higher property taxes. As a group, too many elderly want Uncle Sam to support them and don’t care about our ridiculous national debt.</p>
<p>
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<p>As a practical matter, when I was in university, I was more informed about the politics in the city where the university was than the politics in the city that I grew up in. Of course, since I lived there most of the time (8+ months out of the year), the politics there affected me more than the politics in the city that I grew up in.</p>
<p>College students are not giving up anything to vote in their new state/district. They are not claiming to be independent and lose funding or parent’s claiming them as dependents.</p>
<p>To vote you need to show you’ve lived at your new address for several months. My son did this to vote in the last presidential election. His vote was not needed in NY but needed to be counted in his new state.</p>