# Right-wingers trying to block college-student voter-registration drives **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 27, 2004, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wingers-trying-to-block-college-student-voter-registration-drives/266321 "2004-09-27T17:28:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wingers-trying-to-block-college-student-voter-registration-drives/266321/1 "2004-09-27T17:28:55Z")
From the website of the Feminist Majority Foundation, [http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=8629:](http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp?id=8629:) > [@](#): > > The controversy arose August 31 when the Network of Feminist Student Activists organized Suffrage 2004: Get Out HER Vote, a massive student voter registration initiative aimed at registering and mobilizing young women on campus to vote. The Fox News reporter repeatedly questioned NFSA student leaders Kelly Kraus and Julianna Zuccaro **whether they knew they might be committing an “unintentional felony” by registering out-of-state students.** Kraus and Zucarro protested and challenged the accuracy of the Fox News reporter’s statements and were surprised to see the story run both that evening and the following morning. > > According to Arizona and national voting rights attorneys engaged by the Feminist Majority Foundation, not only has the United States Supreme Court (US v. Symm) expressly ruled that college communities must allow students to register to vote there, but the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970 specifically prohibit states from establishing “durational residency” requirements. The really disturbing part is that the Pima County Recorder actually appeared on that Fox News report and backed up their position, declaring that students who do not intend to stay in Arizona indefinitely are not allowed to register to vote in Arizona. Which is not the law. In fact, any otherwise eligible voter who goes to register up to 29 days before the election, and plans to remain in Arizona for that 29 days, is allowed to register and vote. The Arizona Secretary of State and the Pima County Registar’s Office were forced to issue a retraction. Fox News ran a correction but placed all the blame for the error on the public authorities. I just heard Julie Kraus interviewed on the _Democracy Now!_ radio show. She noted that voter-registration drives are a very common activity by campus activists, and in fact the College Republicans were doing their own drive on campus the same day; it was “no coincidence” that Fox picked a feminist organization to pick on. From [http://www.feminist.org/news/pressstory.asp?id=8630:](http://www.feminist.org/news/pressstory.asp?id=8630:) > [@](#): > > "This is not the first time we have confronted misinformation that has suppressed student voter registration and voting,” said Katherine Spillar, Executive Vice President of the Feminist Majority Foundation. “In state referendum campaigns on women’s rights since the mid-1980s, we have encountered state and local election officials who have discouraged student voter registration drives. When challenged in court, such election officials’ instructions that have reduced student voting have been struck down as unconstitutional.” See also [http://activism.diaryland.com/](http://activism.diaryland.com/). How widespread is this practice? Have any of you heard of local authorities or conservative activists trying to discourage college students from registering to vote under their at-school address? And . . . **why?** I don’t believe college students, nowadays, are significantly more liberal than the general population. What are these rat-bastards so afraid of? ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wingers-trying-to-block-college-student-voter-registration-drives/266321/2 "2004-09-27T17:57:08Z")
I’m not going to defend Fox News here. I will report, though, that registering to vote in Pittsburgh when I was a student there made me liable for wage taxes there. I wouldn’t have had to pay them had I maintained my voting registration in Washington County, PA, where I was from. There are also potential issues of dual voting, which may by inadvertantly encouraged by the campus drives. Dual voting is a crime. I think responsible campus registration drives should explain these issues. We explained them when we subsequently held drives at Pitt. ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wingers-trying-to-block-college-student-voter-registration-drives/266321/3 "2004-09-27T18:11:07Z")
The current issue here that is becoming a college student issue is that in Michigan, one’s voter registration address and one’s driver’s license address have to agree. Or, in other words, you have to vote where the Secretary of State (In Michigan, these people are our “DMV”) have you living. So a college student voter whose permanent residence is in Grand Rapids, but wants to vote in Detroit where he’s at school at Wayne State, cannot vote in Detroit unless (a) changes his Driver’s license to his Detroit address or (b) obtains an absentee ballot for his Grand Rapids precinct and mails it back. The problem with (b) is that generally, no person can be issued an absentee ballot unless they have registered to vote _in person either at their secretary of state of local clerk’s office_. So these “register to vote” drives held by other agencies are only useful for those students who can make it to their polling place in person. Like locals. Or students whose driver’s license has been changed to their local address. Some people have wanted to ease some of these rules so fewer college students will have these sorts of problems. And they’ve griped that it’s the Republicans who are balking. Whether that’s true, I don’t know. On the other hand, however, the Secretary of State’s office has been trying to address this problem directly by coming to college campuses with a mobiel office so more students can register “in person” with them. That makes those new student voters eligible to vote absentee. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wingers-trying-to-block-college-student-voter-registration-drives/266321/4 "2004-09-27T18:30:31Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > There are also potential issues of dual voting, which may by inadvertantly encouraged by the campus drives. Dual voting is a crime. Cite? That sounds perfectly plausible to me, but I’d still like a cite. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wingers-trying-to-block-college-student-voter-registration-drives/266321/5 "2004-09-27T18:48:12Z")
It’s a problem everywhere. Whether it would be encouraged to any significant degree by these drives, I don’t know. There could easily be a case where a student proceeds to vote on campus after voting absentee at home. As to whether this is a crime, there’s no doubt of that. From the Arizona Code: > [@](#): > > 16-1016. Illegal voting; pollution of ballot box; removal or destruction of ballot box, poll lists or ballots; classification > > A person is guilty of a class 5 felony who: > > 1. Not being entitled to vote, knowingly votes. > > 2. Knowingly votes more than once at any election… If you’re registered in another jurisdiction, you’re not entitled to vote. If you vote more than once, you commit a felony. Similar laws are on the books in all fifty states. ---
**Author:** ![NurseCarmen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/5daacb/32.png) [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wingers-trying-to-block-college-student-voter-registration-drives/266321/6 "2004-09-27T19:35:45Z")
> [@Mr. Moto](#): > > If you’re registered in another jurisdiction, you’re not entitled to vote. Read that law again. That isn’t what it says. Folks usually don’t take the steps to unregister when they move, so being registered to vote in more than one place is actually common. And not illegal. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wingers-trying-to-block-college-student-voter-registration-drives/266321/7 "2004-09-27T19:38:44Z")
The Arizona Code says you can’t vote “more than once in any election.” You would be violating that if you, for instance, voted in the presidential election at the precinct near your campus in Arizona while also voting in the same election by absentee ballot at your family’s address in Colorado. But you wouldn’t be violating it if you voted in the primary in Colorado, and the general election in Arizona. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2004, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wingers-trying-to-block-college-student-voter-registration-drives/266321/8 "2004-09-27T19:43:40Z")
Agreed. The conflict would arise if voting rights were exercized in more than one place simultaneously, or if the switch were made too close to an election. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wingers-trying-to-block-college-student-voter-registration-drives/266321/9 "2004-09-28T00:51:14Z")
FYI, there’s a related GD thread going – “Republican voter intimidation tactics” – [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=277079](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=277079) ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wingers-trying-to-block-college-student-voter-registration-drives/266321/10 "2004-09-28T02:56:43Z")
> [@BrianGlutton](#): > > Fox News ran a correction but placed all the blame for the error on the public authorities. Why shouldn’t all the blame be placed on the public authorities? For petes sake its their job to know and execute these laws. If Fox News has the secretary of state and registrar on record saying that these drives were illegal what blame could they have? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/right-wingers-trying-to-block-college-student-voter-registration-drives/266321/11 "2004-09-28T16:34:34Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Why shouldn’t all the blame be placed on the public authorities? For petes sake its their job to know and execute these laws. If Fox News has the secretary of state and registrar on record saying that these drives were illegal what blame could they have? Journalists are not lawyers (usually), but they do have the ability to do basic legal and historical research. A responsible news crew, before even thinking of treating a campus voter-registration drive as a story, would have done a few minutes of googling and found out that this situation has come up before and that “durational residency” requirements for voting are illegal under the Voting Rights Act as amended in 1970, and that the Supreme Court has expressly ruled that college communities must allow citizens to register to vote there. (See OP.) Furthermore, Fox wasn’t just treating this as a story. It was using a nonstory to get in activists’ faces and intimidate them and, in effect, threaten them and anybody who tried to register with them with the possibility of felony prosecution.