Student Voting Guide | Delaware
Registration
http://elections.delaware.gov/default.shtml (registration form available online)
https://registertovote.elections.delaware.gov/voterreg/TermsAgreement (online registration)
Your registration must be submitted or postmarked by the fourth Saturday before Election Day.[1] In Delaware, you can also register to vote online by this deadline. If you register in person, you will have to provide proof of residence and identity (acceptable forms of ID are listed below).[2] You can register to vote if you will be 18 by the next general election.[3]
Residency
Delaware requires that a voter be “a bona fide resident.”[4] Delaware courts have held that residence means “domicile.”[5] To establish a domicile, an individual must establish “physical presence” and intend to make it a “permanent home.”[6] This includes an “actual abandonment” of the previous home by intending to live at the new home indefinitely.[7]
At School. Students who move to Delaware to attend school with the intention of making Delaware their home and with no intent of moving back to their previous place of residence should be able to establish voting residency in Delaware.
At Home. Students who lived in Delaware before moving to another state for school, and who wish to establish or keep their Delaware voting residency (i.e., at their parents’ Delaware address) should have no problem doing so, unless they have already registered to vote in their new state. Like all states, Delaware allows students to keep their voting residency even if they move away to attend school, and the only way you might lose this residency is by establishing residency in a new state. While registering to vote in another state is not automatically considered abandonment of residency in your Delaware, some judges or officials might view it as such.
Challenges to Residency. County elections officials have the right to initially deny your application on the basis of your residency[8] or to remove you from the list once you are registered,[9] but you are entitled to notice in either case and can appeal those determinations in court.[10] You have to give the county notice of your appeal, but you can make your appeal at any time, up to and including Election Day.
Your eligibility can be challenged on Election Day by an official poll worker or by a partisan challenger.[11] The poll workers will decide by majority vote if they think you are an eligible resident. [12] You will either be allowed to vote a regular ballot or will have to show ID and vote a provisional ballot.[13] Delaware law does not indicate under what circumstances a provisional ballot cast by a challenged voter will be counted.
Identification
When you register to vote, either in person or by mail, you will have to provide proof of your residence. The following documents are accepted: a Delaware driver’s license, a Delaware car registration with your voting address, a student ID if it has your address on it, a current lease, utility bill (including cell phone bills), tuition bill, student housing bill, bank statement, paycheck stub, or credit card statement in your name and with your voting address, including an online printout, or a Delaware resident income tax return from the last year.[14] If you register by mail and do not provide proof of residence, your registration will not be complete and you will have to vote a provisional ballot and show ID with your name and address at the polls on Election Day.[15] If you are unable to show ID, your ballot will not be counted.
Every voter in Delaware is asked for proof of identity at the polls on Election Day, but you can sign an affidavit to fulfill this requirement.[16]
Any first-time voter who registered by mail and whose identifying numbers (Delaware driver’s license or non-driver ID number or last four digits of your Social Security number) have not been verified by the state must provide ID, either by submitting a copy of identification with your registration form or your absentee ballot, or by showing ID at the polls. Acceptable ID includes: photo ID (including a student ID), or a copy of a current utility bill (including cell phone bills or student housing bills), bank statement, government check, paycheck or other government document that has your name and address.[17] Online printouts of identifying documents will be accepted.
Absentee Voting
http://elections.delaware.gov/services/voter/absenteeballot.shtml
If you are registered to vote in Delaware but you are unable to go to the polls on Election Day because of your “business or occupation,” you may cast an absentee ballot.[18] This includes students who are away from their voting precinct because they are attending school elsewhere.[19]
Blank absentee ballot applications are available on the web site of the Board of Elections and at the above link. Unless you are getting an absentee ballot because you are sick or disabled, in public service, or out of the country, your mail-in application has to be notarized.[20] Applications for absentee ballots are due at your county department of elections office at noon the day before the election,[21] but if you are voting by mail, you will want to get yours in earlier so you will have time to receive your ballot and mail it back.[22]
Absentee ballots must be received by the department of elections by the close of the polls on Election Day.[23] First-time voters who registered by mail and did not include a copy of ID with their registration will have to include a copy with their absentee ballot (see ID section above).
Last Updated in April 2010
[1] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 2036 (2010).
[2] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 2011(b).
[3] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 1701.
[4] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 1701 (2010); see also Del. Const. art V, § 2.
[5] Mitchell v. State Tax Comm’r, 42 A.2d 19, 21–22 (Del. Super. Ct. 1945).
[6] Wife (J. F. V.) v. Husband (O. W. V., Jr.), 402 A.2d 1202, 1204 (Del. 1979).
[7] Id.
[8] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 2014(b) (2010).
[9] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 1702(a).
[10] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 2101 et seq.
[11] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 4936.
[12] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 4937(c).
[13] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 §§ 4936; 4948(b)-(c).
[14] Department of Elections for New Castle County, “Information for College Students,” at http://electionsncc.delaware.gov/college.shtml (last visited Feb. 17, 2010).
[15] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 2033(a) (2010).
[16] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 4937(a).
[17] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 2033(a).
[18] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 5502(3).
[19] See Department of Elections for New Castle County, “Information for College Students,” at http://electionsncc.delaware.gov/college.shtml (last visited Feb. 17, 2010).
[20] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 5503(3) (2010).
[21] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 5503(a).
[22] See Department of Elections for New Castle County, “Information for College Students,” at http://electionsncc.delaware.gov/college.shtml (last visited Feb. 17, 2010).
[23] Del. Code Ann. tit. 15 § 5508(b) (2010).
