How far does that principle extend? Suppose I decided my vote was wasted here in New York so I filed to register as a Texas voter. I gave a hotel I stayed at last year as my legal address (not fictitious, I really did stay in Texas for over two months last year). Are you saying Texas would have to accept my registration and allow me to vote?
Again, the money quote from Florida’s voting rules:
A business address is not typically a satisfactory legal residential address but if the person resides there despite the zoning ordinance, the address could become the person’s legal residential address.
My understanding is that “legal” has two interpretations:
- “Legal residential address” could mean “The address you live at where you’re not breaking any laws by living there.” That’s the interpretation of “legal” that the OP is using, but I don’t think it’s correct.
- “Legal residential address” could mean “The address you live at, as far as the law is concerned.” That’s the interpretation that I think is correct, especially given that quote from the voter rules.
That’s a different principle. Extend both in a very extreme way:
- I break into your house and threaten you with untold terrible fates if you try to kick me out. I live there for six years and vote in every election. Eventually I’m gonna get caught and tried for various crimes, because obviously it wasn’t legal for me to live there; but that’s still my legal permanent address, because for the purposes of legal documents, it’s where I’m living.
- I buy a house, pay for everything very carefully, post pictures of myself there, sign up for mail there, and only show up in the house for 15 minutes a year (for the purposes of getting my picture taken). There’s nothing illegal at all in that setup, but for the purposes of the law, it’s not where I’m living.
Just to be clear on this issues, I believe the following:
I feel states can establish reasonable laws about what qualifies as a legal residence for purposes of establishing domicile.
I feel a law saying your legal residence must be a place in which you have the legal right to reside on a non-temporary basis is reasonable.
I feel states can reasonably require people to declare their legal residence within the state when they register to vote.
I feel that knowingly entering false information on your voter registration can reasonably be defined as invalidating the registration.
I feel that a person voting though the use of what they know is an invalid registration can reasonably be described as committing voter fraud.
I agree with your points, but what is the “false information” in this case? Trump lives at that address.
Aside from the obvious irony, it’s not the sort of story I see much value to promoting.
First, it is potentially a “gotcha” - “Those liberals say that voting fraud isn’t a problem overall, but now listen to them harp on a tiny technicality when Trump supposedly votes illegally. Hypocrites!”
Second, as far as Trump’s behavior goes, he’s done far more harmful things that I would prefer to concentrate on.
Third, while he may have technically committed voter fraud, the kind of fraud that is of interest is much more sweeping in nature - preventing voters from casting their ballots, throwing out/failing to count legitimate ballots, stuffing the ballot box with fake votes for a preferred candidate.
Do you feel that Florida has such a law, despite what I’ve quoted multiple times?
Then you feel it’s reasonable to disenfranchise people who don’t have a place in which they have the legal right to reside on a non-temporary basis.
It’s not clear there’s even a problem here that you’re trying to solve.
Does that mean a homeless person can’t legally vote in Florida? I don’t know exactly what Florida law says, but that seems problematic.
This is what I would assume. The legality of your living in a place is different from the fact of your living in a place. And whether you can give an address as “where I live” to register to vote should be governed by where you factually live, not by whether your living there happens to be legal.
On the other hand, if Trump is declaring Mar a Lago his legal residence, I bet he’s guilty of tax fraud…
Trump signed a legal declaration that the property is not a residence. If the property is not a residence then it cannot be anyone’s legal residence. And if Trump declared it was his legal residence than that was false information.
Not that it applies here, but from that same link I offered earlier:
NC voter registration actually has a section for homeless people, where you can label a generic intersection with street names, and circle the area where you’re likeliest to be found. I don’t know if Florida does the same thing.
Little Nemo is almost certainly misunderstanding the way in which “legal” is modifying “residence.”
Why are you ignoring the repeated and unambiguous cite I’ve given you that you’re just wrong?
Wait, I think I just answered my own question.
I did not think this story would generate this much debate. I really thought of it more as a passing amusement when I posted it.
But I do see a potential angle the Democrats could pursue in the unlikely event this becomes a significant issue. Trump has made ongoing accusations that voter fraud is a serious problem and has accused the Democrats of perpetuating massive amounts of it. So it would bounce the issue back against him if it was shown that Trump himself committed voter fraud.
Of course, this is Trump. He’s been claiming that contracting Covid19 has made him an expert in Covid19 prevention. He would probably make similar claims that having committed voter fraud makes him an expert on the subject.
I think you’re missing the part of which information was false. We have contradictory information, an agreement that X is not to be used as his private residence, and a claim that X is his private residence.
If we’re talking about criminal voter fraud, it is trivial to claim, quite reasonably, that Trump is breaking the first agreement, rather than lying about his residence.
Rather than worry about voter fraud, I’m hoping the good people of Palm Beach sue the crap out of him, and find a way to shut his place down.
Because I see nothing in that cite that applies to this particular situation. If there is something there that says a person can claim a location as his legal residence when he has signed a use agreement that it is not his legal residence, then please point it out.
There doesn’t need to be anything in there that says this, because:
- There would, instead, need to be something in there that says you CAN’T do this (“what is not forbidden is allowed”); and
- Trump didn’t actually say that. Rather, he seemed to say that he wouldn’t use it as his legal residence, many years ago. It’s completely obvious that he changed his mind.
The cite makes it very clear that if you’re using a place as your residence that you’re not allowed to use as your residence, it’s your legal residence for the purpose of voter registration. The reason that you’re not allowed to use it as your residence is immaterial.
I’d be much more willing to bet that there are tax advantages to the “Private Club” arrangement.
If he is violating that agreement, as he is be declaring it his domicile AND also physically being present more than he is allowed, would there be back taxes or similar owing?
Yes. And for 1, I’d say the OP is actually saying “not breaking any legal agreements by living there.” Which the voter registration laws have nothing to do with. I mean, if I live in a rental, but lost my job and stopped paying rent, then I’m violating an agreement I signed saying that in exchange for living there, I would pay rent. But as long as I’m actually living there, it remains my legal residence.
That’s because that term refers to my declared residence for legal purposes. It has nothing to do with whether I promised to move out, or pay money, or whatever, and am breaking that promise.
Residency is established by intention. Actions are one way you can prove the intention. I personally have no doubt that President Trump intends for Florida to be his residence state. He does not intend to stay in DC after he’s no longer president, and I’m sure he doesn’t intend to return to New York. Establishing residency for him is a little atypical because he is living in DC currently, but I think he’s probably done enough to show his intention to return to Florida from his temporary living in DC, and live there indefinitely.
Is the agreement legally binding in government matters? I feel it is. One of the parties to the agreement was the town council. And the agreement was used as the settlement in a court case. So it has official recognition beyond being just an agreement between two private parties.
Did Trump agree in 1993 that he would not live at Mar-a-Lago? The newspaper article says Paul Rampell, Trump’s attorney, said Trump was agreeing to this.
Was Trump’s 1993 agreement not to live at Mar-a-Lago legally binding or was it just a voluntary decision on his part? The article seems to be saying it was legally binding: *“The deal he struck made it clear that no one could live permanently at the property.”
In the United States, we have multiple sovereigns and multiple levels of government. An agreement with the government is likely binding as to that government’s matters. But this agreement with a local government has no effect on Trump’s obligations or relationship to the state or federal governments.
In some instances, a government may have statutory powers that allow it to enforce agreements between private parties (or a private party and another government). For example, state attorneys general normally have power to oversee charitable trusts and to seek revocation of the trusts if the assets are not being used for the appropriate charitable purposes, even though the trust is just a private agreement between a [dead] person and a charity.
But there is no law that allows the federal government to enforce a zoning agreement between a property owner and a local government (except to the extent that the agreement impacts federal statutory interests like navigable waterways, which is why Trump couldn’t build a dock at his not-home).
I’m sure there’s some shady shit in everything Trump touches, but primarily Trump’s angle here was “Help me, I’m bleeding money.” Mar-a-lago was gifted to the federal government in 1973, and then returned to the Post Foundation in 1981 because it was a giant money sink. Donald Trump bought it at a discount but couldn’t afford it either. He wanted to divide up the lot and sell it off in smaller chunks but since it’s a historic building, lawyers from many parties got involved. Him turning it into a private club was a compromise. See this quote from 1993:
Paul Rampell, Palm Beach attorney trying to come up with a solution for Mar-A-Lago: “The expense of Mar-A-Lago has got to shift from one person to a group of people … At this time more support has been expressed for the idea of a private club than for a museum or for subdividing. It’s a community issue. It isn’t just the perceived problem of Donald Trump.”
So that’s what he did. It’s not that Palm Beach didn’t want him using it as a private residence, and it’s not even like Trump was trying to skirt some law. It’s that nobody could afford the upkeep on the place, but Palm Beach wanted to keep it around as-is for its historical value. So they allowed Trump to profit from turning it into a private club, while at the same time requiring that at least 50% of members be Palm Beach residents so that the community would have a financial stake in it.
This was all 27 years ago so I don’t know what would happen if the 1993 agreement was nullified. For one, it would revert back to being a private residence, thus sort of negating the angle that’s being suggested here that it’s not really a private residence. But after that, lawyers would have to get involved again to figure out what to do with the place.