Correct, bcos they don’t want to admit that maybe their kiddo was in the wrong.
OMG. Yes, I agree with all this. But Matt also says on his website that registering to vote in Maine means that you are declaring yourself to be a Maine resident. And that by declaring yourself to be a Maine resident, you are subject to Maine motor vehicle laws, which includes the requirement to obtain a Maine driver’s license, if you want to drive, and registering in Maine any car that you own that is in Maine.
So while there is no “statutory connectivity” between motor vehicle law and election law in Maine (you don’t have to get a Maine driver’s license before registering to vote in Maine, for instance), there is a connection between election law and residency law (in order to vote in Maine you must be a resident of Maine) and between residency law and motor vehicle law (if you are a resident of Maine and want to drive you must get a Maine driver’s license within the prescribed time period). In this regard, college students in Maine are treated no differently than any other person.
Edited to add: also, if after registering to vote in Maine it is discovered that you have not obtained a Maine driver’s license with the prescribed time frame, or have not registered in Maine the car that you own that still has out of state plates, you will not be disenfranchised, because no violation of election law has occurred. You may be charged with a motor vehicle law violation, but that will not inhibit your ability to vote. This is what Matt Dunlap is talking about.
Is there any way to automatically replay BelknapPoint’s messages? It would sure be useful, because then when yet another person brings up the same point again, his auto-replayed message can refute the point, again.
Maybe I’m just being dense, but I don’t think anyone has argued that one has to obtain a Maine’s driver’s license in order to have the right to register to vote in Maine.
Just an FYI, I saw this on Twitter, so consider the source, but it said that the following states allow same day registration and voting:
CO
CT
DC
ID
IL
IA
MD
ME
MN
MT
NH
OH
WI
WY
It can be presidential only.
What MV violation, as a college kid? No connectivity to see that kid registered to vote.
Different when someone locates there for a job or other reasons. I know that.
But just because you can register and vote today doesn’t mean there aren’t other requirements. In Colorado, you must declare that you have been a resident for 22 days, so if you moved here yesterday, you wouldn’t be able to be a resident and vote today. You don’t have to prove this in any way but your declaration (no license, no address required, no other evidence).
When I moved to California I failed to get a new license within 30 days so had to pay a fine when I did get one. I was unwilling to state that I had just moved to the state within the last 30 days as I’d been there about 75 days and that was one of the questions on the application. People couldn’t believe I paid the fine (“No one does that, everyone just picks a date within 30 days”) but I was not going to lie. It wasn’t ‘like a $15 fine’ as someone posted above, but more like $100.
Perhaps there should really be a recommendation, independent of any voting issues, that students going out of state to a residential college change driver’s license (if driving) and other things like that to the new state where they will be living for most of the next four years.
It is easily overlooked, since many students and their parents have no recent experience with such issues.
I don’t think anyone would have been upset if accurate information about requirements for residents to get a new license, etc. were included in a packet of voter registration information available months ago. If it were simply “Here’s how to register, here’s what you need to prove residence, here’s the deadline, here are the requirements for residents…” it would have been considered new Maine resident voter education. Plastering the campus with inaccurate information and implying that voting in Maine would cost a student hundreds of dollars is out and out voter intimidation IMO.
According to Rock the Vote for Students in Maine:
Register at School or Home?
Students have a choice about where to register to vote.
School address:
Students attending college in Maine may register at their school address. You must plan to return after temporary absences, like summer break, but do not have to plan to reside at that address permanently.
Permanent address:
Students may choose to register or remain registered at a permanent address in Maine or outside the state. In this case, students may need to vote by absentee ballot.
You may only be registered and vote in one location.
It does not follow that you HAVE to get a Maine driver’s license, unless you plan to drive in Maine and will have a car there for whatever the required period of time is to have change your license. You could live in Maine and never drive and thus never have to have a driver’s license. You could live in Maine during the period required to register and then vote and move the next day back home. I don’t think the two are related.
He’s not even out of college and you’ve already forgotten to required parental response to “But everyone else is doing it!”?
There’s a way to vote only for president? Not in my precinct. You could only vote in that race, but the ballot allows you to vote on about 3 dozen issues today. And it matters where you vote. A vote in Florida or Iowa or Ohio might be more important than a vote in California or NY in this year’s presidential race.
The Maine Secretary of State disagrees with you.
What does this mean?
College students from out of state who become Maine residents by registering to vote in Maine are subject to the same motor vehicle laws as any other resident. If they want to drive, they need to get a Maine driver’s license. If they want to own a car in Maine, it needs to have Maine registration.
For the purposes of establishing residency and thus being able to voter in Maine, it makes no difference what brings the person to the state. Show me where it says that college students are treated differently.
No one is saying that you have to get a Maine driver’s license in order to vote in Maine. That’s been clear throughout the whole thread.
Not true. Where does the SOS say that? The info sheet we’ve all been quoting says,
Nothing here states that a resident needs to have a Maine driver’s license, only that residents who drive in Maine are expected to get a Maine driver’s license.
…Meanwhile, still wondering if other reports of voter intimidation or suppression have occurred on any other college campuses.
“He’s not even out of college and you’ve already forgotten to required parental response to “But everyone else is doing it!”?”
Eh? My son graduated in 2015 and moved to Boston.
There are a lot of people, not just students, who spend time (or even own homes) in two or more states during the year. They can only have one state of legal residence at a time and there are state laws that restrict what they can and can’t do. They can’t have driver’s licenses in two states (although a lot of truck drivers do, it is illegal) and they can’t vote in two states, but if they want to change the license and voter registration every 6 months, they can do that. Some home owners have wanted to have the right to just vote in local elections in two states (there was a big push for summer homeowners in Michigan to be able to vote there on property tax issues) but there is no provision for that in federal law and you can’t limit elections to property owners. You can only be counted in the census once, if you have 10 homes, you can only vote once. You pick.
One person, one vote. That’s fair.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Let’s get back to the original topic and stay away from discussing driver’s licenses. I think that subject has been hashed through more than enough.