<p>This will be my freshman son’s first election. He’s registered to vote here at home and has asked me if he should register to vote at school in a neighboring state. Can he do this if his address is a dorm? Or should he just request an absentee ballot? </p>
<p>We live in a university town and find it annoying when students vote in a presidential election and they vote a straight party ticket on our local representatives when they typically know nothing about them. It’s not an issue in non-presidential election years.</p>
<p>Anyway, I just wondered what your college students do.</p>
<p>S2 is voting by absentee ballot. When S1 was in college, the state he went to school in allowed college students to use dorm addresses to register, so he registered there. Not all states allow using a dorm address, so you’d need to check with the election laws of the state where your child’s in college.</p>
<p>I was going to say the same thing. You might want to check with where you live and where you want to vote. In MI your driver’s license and voter’s registration card must have the same address.</p>
<p>OK, thanks everybody. He has requested an absentee ballot online. It didn’t occur to me that college students can’t register at his school because they can do it here. I think my son wanted to experience going to the polling place to vote because we always made a big deal out of it and he would go with us.</p>
<p>DS will vote by absentee ballot; the State of Illinois has a college student program where they will send ballots for two years to the college address (they check before each election and then send the student the form to request the ballot; nice since the student doesn’t have to remember. Not that this election is forgettable!).</p>
<p>My son got an absentee ballot for the primary that arrived the day after the election, so he didn’t vote. In a way I think he ought to vote in PA where his vote is likely to make a difference.</p>
<p>You might want to check with your insurance company before advising your student. If your student registers to vote out of the state from where the parents live (i.e., in another state than where the parents’ home is located), it can void the coverage of the student’s personal property in his or her dorm room. That is what I was told last year when I called my insurance company about coverage in the dorm.</p>
<p>My son goes to an in-state private school about two hours away from home; most of the students are out-of-state.
He planned to use an absentee ballot but said during freshman orientation the students were advised to change their registration to vote locally. So he did that. I am glad he will be able to go into a booth but curious about why there was a recommendation for that.</p>
<p>One of the first things D did last year as a freshman was change her registration to the college town. She’s already voted in local elections there, which impact the college population. If there was a choice I’d advise as Mary13 suggests…vote where the impact will be greatest. Daughter, alas, is in-state so it’s a tossup for the presidential election.</p>
<p>I worry a bit about something like that happening with my D’s ballot. We’re in PA, so every vote is critical this year. At least she’s close enough that, if push came to shove, she could get back home, vote, and return to school the same day.</p>