Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Protecting Our Students' Voting Rights

Suffrage (from the Latin suffragium, meaning "vote") is the civil right to vote, or the exercise of that right. In that context, it is also called political franchise or simply the franchise.
~Wikipedia entry

The issue of suffrage--and the denial of it to some people and groups--has been an issue in this country since...well, since before it was "this country." Many groups have in the past and more recently had challenges to their rights to exercise this important civic responsibility. But for those of us working in higher education, we should be paying particular attention to continuing threats to our students' voting rights. A recent CoHE piece highlights some of the issues:

Before winter break, Rick Andrews thought Barack Obama was a long shot. The junior at Washington University in St. Louis liked Mr. Obama, but not his chances.

"I got a lot more excited about voting in Missouri after he won in Iowa," Mr. Andrews says.

But the deadline for registering to vote in Missouri was January 9, when he was driving back to St. Louis from his parents' house in Acton, Mass. He is still fired up about Mr. Obama, but he won't be able to vote in Missouri or in Massachusetts.

"Ultimately it's still my responsibility to keep track of all the dates and do what I need to do," he says. But early voter-registration deadlines, he adds, put students at a disadvantage.

The key issue in student suffrage is residency: are students residents of the states where their parents live or where they go to school? Can each student choose for herself or himself? What is required to prove residency status in order to register and vote? And as importantly, are these deadlines and requirements fair to students? The answers to these questions, not surprisingly, vary from state to state:

Many students who go away to college want to register to vote where they are in school. In some states it is relatively easy. Minnesota and Wisconsin, both of which allow voters to register on Election Day, had the top two youth turnouts in the 2004 presidential election: 69 percent and 63 percent, respectively.

In some other states, voters must prove an "intent to stay." Election law in Ohio has specific provisions about students, who may vote, it says, if they intend "to reside permanently in the Ohio county in which the school residence address is located."

But wait a minute. Is any other citizen required to prove "intent to stay"? What would constitute such proof for a student versus a non-student and would such requirements be fair to students? According to the Chronicle piece, courts have generally ruled that students can't be subject to questioning beyond that of any other citizen. But that does not change the fact that some students may be unaware or confused about their rights. And this lack of awareness and confusion may increase the possibility of success of intimidation tactics, as almost happened in this student's case:

Cindy Padera, a senior at the University of Pennsylvania, first registered to vote in Philadelphia in 2004, rather than in her hometown of Western Springs, Ill. "At this point in students' lives, four years is a very long time," she says, "and you make a commitment to where you're living."

But her commitment wavered in the days before the presidential election, when misleading fliers posted on the campus warned out-of-state students that voting in Pennsylvania could jeopardize their financial aid and subject them to extra taxes. Ms. Padera was almost deterred, but she did end up voting.

Fortunately, there have been several recent efforts aimed at helping younger voters more generally and student voters in particular. Student Association for Voter Empowerment (S.A.V.E.) "teaches deliberate decision-making, democratic responsibility and community involvement in order to ensure active participation for a lifetime" as well as seeks to "remove (voting) obstructions and mobilize a broad coalition of young adults committed to policy reform and thereby transparent, accountable, and fair election practices." The Rock the Vote effort has a campus campaign that provides information on student voting rights as well as a tool kit for fighting student voter rights suppression.

Posted by perry032 at January 31, 2008 06:31 AM | TrackBack
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