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Student Voting
By Elisabeth Genn – 02/23/12
With the state Senate’s passage of a bill that would eliminate high schools as designated voter registration sites, Wisconsin has unfortunately joined the ranks of states speeding ahead with measures that will make it more difficult for students to register and vote. The state Senate passed the bill on February 21, the same day that Wisconsin residents went to the polls for the first time with the state’s new photo ID law in place.
Wisconsin law currently requires that each high school work with local election officials to appoint at least one special registration deputy to help register eligible students and staff at that school. In addition, under current law, the principal of any private high school or any tribal school that operates high school grades in Wisconsin may request to do the same.
The opportunity for eligible students to register at their schools is particularly important in Wisconsin because the state does not offer pre-registration to students before they turn 18. By seeking to eliminate voter registration at high schools, the Wisconsin legislature is putting up additional hurdles to the registration of a student population that is already likely to be underserved. Without a visible voter registration presence in their schools, Wisconsin students might get a driver's license at the age of 16, but not be offered the opportunity to register to vote until renewing their licenses four years later. In the interim, countless students could miss their opportunity to cast a ballot. Whatever may be the perceived administrative benefits of attempting to streamline voter registration in Wisconsin, they cannot outweigh the cost to be borne by students.
At a time of understandable skepticism on the part of young people about whether their voices can be heard over the roar of corporate money turned speech, we should be sending students the message that their participation in our democracy is as critical as ever. High schools are eminently appropriate institutions to teach students about the importance of civic participation. States should facilitate efforts by high schools to serve that important function rather than gut them in the service of administrative expediency.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Student Voting
By Lee Rowland – 10/18/11
Sometimes political operatives go too far. Opponents of Maine’s long-standing and popular same-day voter registration system killed it in the legislature this year – but they still have to face an unhappy public at the polls. Sadly, their main campaign tactic appears to be producing lists that smear the good names of Maine residents, and the integrity of the state’s elections, with unfounded insinuations of election crimes.
First there was the list of 206: 206 students living at the University of Maine, who had come to identify Maine as their new home, but paid out-of-state tuition under the University’s strict rules. Suddenly a politician holds a press conference, and their hometowns, initials, and birth dates appear on a blacklist of students that “may have committed voter fraud.” The secretary of state then folded this list into a serious criminal investigation, which proceeded in spite of the easily-discovered fact that the sole criterion used to compile it – that the 206 paid out-of-state tuition – has nothing to do with their eligibility to vote in Maine.
The secretary recently confirmed that his investigation of the list revealed no evidence of fraud, but inexplicably, even as he affirmed that students have every legal right to vote where they live, he questioned their patriotism for doing so. The ACLU of Maine and allied organizations wrote Maine Secretary of State Charles Summers today, demanding he send a new letter clarifying these voters’ rights and correcting the record.
Then came the list of 19: 19 young adults who availed themselves of Maine’s longstanding tradition of election day registration in 2004. But these voters registered from a nontraditional residence – the Holiday Inn. Rather than simply ask “why?” partisans started pounding tables in September, using this “uncovered” evidence as proof that Mainers should vote to uphold the repeal of same-day registration.
It took a simple phone call to discover that during the 2004 school year, the entire Holiday Inn was, in fact, a St. Joseph’s College dorm housing transfer students whose campus had been ravaged by Hurricane Ivan. Long after the hotel confirmed this fact to the media, the press release “revealing” these students remains on a state political party’s website, ignoring the far less scandalous truth. The only thing these 19 Mainers appear to be guilty of is having had the gall to be displaced by a natural disaster during an election year.
These are two new verses in the same old tune.
The Brennan Center for Justice has monitored and investigated claims of voter fraud for years. We have consistently found that accusations of voter fraud are amplified out of all proportion to reality, and that they frequently reach a crescendo when their appearance would assist one side in a bitter political fight over elections.
Cavalier accusations that someone “may have” committed a crime come at a real price. One Maine student from the list of 206 has written that he fears his future reputation will be tarnished by his name’s quickly-deduced association with a serious election crime. And the victims are not only the targeted students, but every Maine student who hears serious criminal accusations tossed around by politicos and thinks twice about voting in such an intimidating atmosphere. Would you risk casting a perfectly legal ballot if you thought your tuition status or dorm residence might just win you a spot on the next public blacklist?
There’s a reason that opponents of same-day registration couch their accusations with disclaimers, clear their targets of crimes but call them unpatriotic, or use words like “uncovered” without actually identifying a wrong. It’s simple: there’s no proof any of these students did a single thing wrong. Maine’s election law includes numerous safeguards to prevent fraudulent registrations on election day or any other day. The Maine Town and City Clerks Association – the front line protecting Maine’s election integrity - testified that they were concerned the repeal of same-day registration would disenfranchise voters, not protect them. For 37 years, Maine clerks have successfully registered thousands of voters on election day.
That’s why lists built on misinformation and innuendo are the best arguments that same-day registration opponents have to wield.
There is one list that is relevant to the debate over election day registration – the list of 50,000. More than 50,000 Mainers relied on same-day registration to vote in 2008 on days now eliminated under the law. Indeed, as the Bangor Daily News reported, Mainers who have taken advantage of same-day registration include nine lawmakers who voted to repeal it and Governor LePage, who signed the bill into law. Despite the claims of opponents, there’s no evidence that any of these voters did so fraudulently – just conveniently.
So when the next trumped-up accusation of fraud hits the media – and it will – watch as these claims unravel after even the most cursory investigation. Maine deserves better than election policies founded on scare tactics.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Allegations of Voter Fraud, Election Day Registration, Student Voting
By Megan Brown – 10/18/11
You may have heard the stories coming out of Maine – but we want you to know the truth.
In July, a politician publicized a list of 206 students paying out-of-state tuition at Maine universities, calling the fact that they voted in Maine “evidence of voter fraud.” The Maine Secretary of State investigated these claims and unsurprisingly found that these students did not commit voter fraud – out-of-state tuition status is simply not a bar to registering or voting in Maine.
In early September, a state political party publicly “uncovered” the fact that 19 students had listed a hotel address on their voter registration cards. However, at that time the hotel was operating as a dorm for students displaced by a hurricane. Under Maine law, students may register to vote using their school address, whether it’s a dormitory, apartment, or house – so long as they consider it their home. There is no evidence these students did anything other than vote where they lived.
Now the Secretary of State has sent letters to Maine students paying out-of-state tuition – yes, the same students who were cleared of all wrongdoing in his investigation – and is asking them to obtain a driver’s license or car registration in Maine if they intend to vote there even though there is no standalone requirement to get a Maine driver’s license unless you intend to drive a car in Maine. The targeted way in which this rule is being enforced against students is unwarranted.
When the initial investigation was announced, we sent Secretary Summers a letter cautioning him against publicizing information that might wrongly intimidate student voters. Today, the ACLU of Maine, along with other voting rights groups, sent a letter to the Maine Secretary of State urging him to stop this continued intimidation of student voters.
No eligible voter should be dissuaded from voting due to misinformation and innuendo. We at the Brennan Center want students to have correct and complete information about their right to participate in the political process. In order to know the truth about voting in Maine, you can refer to the Brennan Center’s Maine Student Voting Guide which provides descriptions of the latest ID, residency, voter registration, and absentee balloting requirements.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Allegations of Voter Fraud, Election Day Issues, Election Day Registration, Student Voting
By Megan Brown – 09/22/11
Yesterday Maine Secretary of State Charles Summers, Jr. reaffirmed a basic principle of Maine and federal law: Maine students are eligible to vote in Maine, regardless of whether they pay in-state or out-of-state tuition. In July, Maine Republican Party Chairman Charles Webster accused 206 students who paid “out-of-state” tuition at Maine universities of voter fraud because they voted in Maine. Secretary Summers then announced an investigation into these claims, the results of which he announced today. The result? There was, unsurprisingly, no evidence that any of the 206 students committed voter fraud.
As the Brennan Center noted in a letter to Secretary Summers, under both Maine and federal law the standards for tuition status and voting residency are quite different. Students who meet the legal requirements for residency and choose to register may vote as Maine residents, regardless of their public university tuition status. In fact, if the requirements for in-state tuition were applied to voter residency in Maine, they would be plainly unconstitutional. So the mere fact that some Maine student voters paid out-of-state tuition should never have led to a criminal investigation.
Careless public accusations of voter fraud - especially on such thin evidence – are a serious problem. Misinformed accusations carry the real risk of discouraging eligible voters from registering to vote and casting a ballot. Public officials and political parties alike should share an interest in ensuring that all citizens have accurate information about their voting rights – regardless of the party they intend to cast a vote for.
The results of the investigation released today reaffirm a point we at the Brennan Center have repeatedly made: out-of-state tuition status is not a bar to registering or voting in Maine.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Allegations of Voter Fraud, Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression, Student Voting
By Erik Opsal – 08/08/11
Crossposted at WisOpinion.
What’s up with Wisconsin? I’m surprised when I hear that question, seeing as I now live in New York City. As a former Badger, people outside of the state think I have special insight into the mind of Wisconsin’s political class. But just like all of you, I’m dumbfounded.
The past six months have been quite entertaining. Weeks of protests at the state Capitol, a multi-million dollar Supreme Court election and recount, a polarizing drive for a Voter ID bill, and now a series of recall elections that have brought in millions of dollars from outside interest groups. To the rest of the country, Wisconsin is a mad, mad world.
"This is so out of whack from everything we've ever seen,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, in an interview with Mother Jones about the recall elections. Approximately $3.75 million was spent on legislative races in 2010. For Tuesday's recalls, more than $30 million has already poured in, according to McCabe, and that number is likely to rise.
It’s not the candidates spending all this money—it’s outside interest groups, fighting a proxy war over collective bargaining rights, who are keeping voters in the dark. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision is largely to blame for this deluge of hidden spending. That decision, and others, opened the floodgates for corporations and unions to spend at will and obscure that spending through so-called “Super PACs.” Without proper laws to bring this spending out of the dark, Wisconsinites don’t know who is trying to sway their vote.
At the same time voters get blasted with outside TV ads, the new Voter ID bill makes it harder for them to vote.
In my four years at UW-Madison, I lived at four different addresses. Each time, I registered at the polls by bringing my proof of residency (a utility bill) and nothing more. I wasn’t trying to subvert the system. I voted in state elections, city elections, and county elections. I even moderated a debate between two County Board candidates. I wasn’t one of these students who came from out of state and voted in Wisconsin without knowing who I was voting for, as some Voter ID advocates claim. I truly engaged with Wisconsin politics.
If I had to get a new driver’s license every time I changed my address, as I would under the current Voter ID bill, would I have been so involved? Probably. But it represents an unnecessary obstacle to voting—the bedrock of our democracy—and one that many Wisconsinites might not choose to overcome, especially the poor or the elderly, who might find it hard to get to the DMV.
This kind of Voter ID requirement disproportionately affects the elderly, minorities, and students. According to a 2005 UW-Milwaukee study, 23 percent of voters over the age of 65 do not have a photo ID, 70 percent of whom are women. Statewide, 55 percent of African American males and 49 percent of African American females do not have a photo ID, compared to 17 percent of white males and females. And for students living in the UWM, Marquette, and UW-Madison dorms, just 3 percent had a photo ID with their current address.
To be sure, we need to do everything we can to protect the integrity of our democracy, including guarding our elections from voter fraud. But modernizing voter registration and tightening election administration procedures furthers this goal much more than measures making it harder to vote.
Protecting this integrity not only requires easing Voter ID restrictions, but also passing new laws requiring disclosure of political spending. After jumping through hoops just to be able to vote, the least we can do for Wisconsin voters is reveal who is spending millions to influence their decision. Without that, the country will be left asking, what’s up with Wisconsin?
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Disclosure, Voting Rights & Elections, Student Voting, Voter ID
By Maria da Silva – 06/01/11
Voting is a fundamental right for all American citizens over 18. Some states -- including Arizona and New York -- have prioritized voting rights, with student engagement policies that should serve as models for other states. Yet even as we should be encouraging the next generation to be civically engaged, in many states students are being targeted by bills that make it harder to register and to vote.
In the current legislative cycle, a majority of state legislatures have explored increasingly restrictive voter ID legislation. College students are particularly impacted by many of these voter identification proposals, especially when student IDs do not qualify as photo identification for voting. But even more disturbing is a new trend of bills that seek to explicitly make voting more difficult for college students. The most notable recent example was New Hampshire House Bill 176, which would have created a special voter residency standard for students and members of the military who lived elsewhere—including elsewhere in the state—prior to matriculating or being stationed in New Hampshire, thereby preventing students from voting in state or local elections. The Brennan Center forcefully opposed this bill, and argued that it would likely be unconstitutional. Fortunately, after college students of all political stripes banded together to voice their opposition, the bill died on the House floor.
Instead of spending energy imposing restrictions on students, policy makers should pursue efforts to strengthen students’ ability and desire to vote. Luckily, some legislators and college administrators have recently answered this call by taking proactive and positive steps to encourage student voting. In 2010, the Arizona legislature enacted HB 2668, requiring the Arizona Board of Regents and community college district boards to work with local student government groups to adopt plans to increase student voter registration and voting in elections. 2011 offers hope that New York will soon follow suit.
Currently, a bill pending in the New York State Senate would specify how colleges and universities provide voter registration materials to their students and make colleges, universities and public schools participating registration agencies under the National Voter Registration Act (“NVRA”). A 1998 Amendment to the Higher Education Act requires all colleges to make a good faith effort to provide voter registration forms to students; New York State election law takes one step further by requiring every public college and university (including SUNY and CUNY) to provide voter registration forms at the start of each academic year and in January of presidential election years. This bill, S542A, goes the extra mile to ensure that New York colleges and universities take seriously their duty to bring their students into the democratic process.
While S542A is still making its way through the legislature, Sarah Lawrence College will embark on a pilot program this fall to improve student access to voter registration materials and information, including by making both state and national registration forms available when students register for their courses and by providing registration collection stations. Furthermore, an endowed fund will support a paid student worker to provide voter information and assist students registering to vote.
We join S542A’s sponsor, State Senator Jeffrey Klein, in applauding Sarah Lawrence for their efforts. As Klein stated, “voting is the most important thing you can do to effect change, which is why students should be educated on the voting process so their voices can be heard. We need to replicate what Sarah Lawrence is doing on their campus on every campus in the state of New York.”
Here at the Brennan Center we will remain vigilant and work to ensure that students remain allowed—and encouraged—to exercise their right to vote! In the meantime, check out our Student Voting Guide for information about your state’s voting eligibility requirements.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Student Voting
By Nhu-Y Ngo – 05/26/11
The Big Picture
We’ve written much about the various voter ID battles in the states, but recent legislative attacks on voting rights go far beyond introducing restrictive voter identification requirements.
In fact, legislators around the country have been pushing bills that make sweeping changes to their election codes to limit the voting rights of students and movers, reduce early voting days, and restrict voter registration and “get-out-the-vote” mobilization efforts.
Rather than making efforts to improve and modernize our election system and ensure that all eligible voters are able to vote, some lawmakers are instead trying to make voter registration and voting more difficult by effectively penalizing civic engagement.
Common characteristics of these bills, proposed by legislators in Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, respectively, are that they are long, dense, and cover a wide variety of topics affecting access to the polls. In Texas, the legislative attack on voting has been done through a series of bills, which is bound to confuse citizens who must sift through a pile of proposed laws.
These bills are more than mere proposals of some overzealous legislators. The Florida bill became law last week, and Governor Scott Walker signed Wisconsin’s bill on Wednesday. Bills in North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas are still under consideration.
We provide a summary of these restrictive laws and bills below.
Florida
Florida’s House Bill 1355, a mammoth 158-page omnibus bill that was signed by the Governor Rick Scott on May 19th, includes language that would:
- Require voter registration groups to pre-register every single volunteer or employee (by requiring each person to sign a sworn affidavit under penalty of perjury) and turn in every registration form they get within 48 hours or face strict penalties and fees
- Eliminate Florida’s longstanding policy of allowing voters who have moved to update their new address at the polls on Election Day
- Reduce the early voting period from two weeks to one
As the Brennan Center’s Lee Rowland wrote earlier, the pre-registration requirement means a student council member can’t swap in to take a turn to pass out registration forms without first signing a sworn affidavit, under penalty of perjury, with the State. The tight turnaround time means that registration groups will be unable to follow up with voters who leave forms incomplete and will incur high fines for going a minute over the deadline.
The burdens of this bill will fall disproportionately on low-income and minority voters, renters, and students: eligible voters that already face the biggest hurdles to vote. And the groups that try to register these voters, from student organizers to the League of Women Voters, could be penalized for their attempts to bring more eligible citizens into our democracy.
The bill was signed by the Governor on May 19th despite urging from voting rights advocacy groups that the new law will only harm voters.
Ohio
Ohio, seemingly not wanting to be outdone by Florida, has a longer bill. Coming in at 297 pages, House Bill 194 is definitely competing with Florida in an imagined voter restrictions dance-off, perhaps to “I Gotta Feeling” by the Black Eyed Peas, which was playing in the background of South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley’s voter ID bill signing.
This bill is not all bad. Perhaps most importantly, it limits opportunities for unwarranted challenges at the polls that could be used to intimidate voters. It also makes it easier for people who change their names (i.e., recently married women) to vote a regular ballot.
But there are a number of new restrictions including:
- Significantly reducing locations and times for early in-person voting
- Prohibiting counties from sending absentee ballot applications to all registered voters or sending return postage on absentee ballots
- Eliminating requirements that an election official must direct a voter who is in the wrong precinct to the voter’s correct precinct (which is especially crucial as provisional ballots only count if cast in the correct precinct)
- Eliminating the ability of provisional voters to provide additional information or identification to ensure their ballots are counted in the 10 days after they voted
- Discarding votes that the voting machine reads as “overvotes” (i.e., voting for more than one candidate in a contest), even when a subsequent review makes the voter intent clear
H.B. 194 does allow voters to electronically update their registration information online, which is a reform we support, but only if the voter already updated this information with the Bureau of Motor Vehicles (meaning this will benefit far fewer voters than it could).
North Carolina
North Carolina has its own “Voting Integrity” bill, as it is short-titled. Instead of securing the election administration process in smart ways, Senate Bill 657 would undo some of North Carolina’s best voting practices by:
- Cutting down the early voting period by one week
- Ending pre-registration for 17 year-olds, which has become an important way to promote civic participation among young people
- Repealing Same Day Registration (current law allows eligible voters to register to vote or update their registration information during the early voting period)
We are particularly troubled by the last two items. Eliminating Same Day Registration in North Carolina will discourage voters who already encounter other voter registration barriers from participating. The motivation behind eliminating pre-registration is unclear and unfairly punishes young voters who are lawfully eligible to vote.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin Assembly Bill 7 is widely known as a bill that would require Department of Transportation-issued photo ID, a passport, military or tribal ID, or naturalization certificate in order to vote. Student IDs could in theory be acceptable, but in practice, the ones that the University of Wisconsin currently issues would not be. The University will have to issue new cards to all students at an estimated cost of millions if it wants its IDs to be accepted as appropriate identification for voting under A.B. 7.
In the bill, there are also provisions to:
- Extend the length of residency period before an eligible person may register to vote from 10 to 28 days
- Move the deadline for a late registration to the Friday before an election, rather than the day before an election
A.B. 7 passed in a hasty vote, during which Senate President Mike Ellis cut off debate and declared the bill passed before all members of the Senate could cast their votes.
See the video here:
WI Senate Vote on Voter Suppression Bill 5.19.11 by nicknice
After the vote, Governor Scott Walker tweeted his glee. Walker signed the bill yesterday.
And then, there is Texas
Lone Star legislators did not seek to package their voting restrictions into one giant bill, defying the adage that everything is bigger in Texas. But there is still reason to be alarmed by what’s happening in Austin.
Two bills would make it harder for persons to become deputy voter registrars. There is even a bill that will slap you with a Class C misdemeanor if you help more than two voters in a day.
Priorities in Texas seem a bit misguided. For example, thanks to recently passed legislation, Texans will be able to legally “noodle,” the art of catching fish by hand. The author of the bill, State Senator Bob Deuell, is quoted as saying, “I personally don't noodle, but I would defend to the death your right to do so.”
No word on if he will defend to the death your right to vote.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Challenges, Caging & Vote Suppression, Election Day Issues, Student Voting, Voter ID, Voter Registration Drives
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