Keeping College Students from Voting
 

Attention college students: You may not be able to change these practices, right now, but you should know where you can legally vote and prepare to vote absentee if you have to. And then contact your state reps and senators and your secretary of state (of the state, not Mrs. Clinton) to complain.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/op...=1&ref=opinion

Here's a snippet of the editorial.
Political leaders should be encouraging young adults to participate in civic life, but many Republican state lawmakers are doing everything they can instead to prevent students from voting in the 2012 presidential election. Some have openly acknowledged doing so because students tend to be liberal.

Despite the obvious viewpoint of this article, the point is, and should be, that to be a knowledgeable voter, you should not only know where you are eligible to vote, but how to do so, and how to do so for candidates whose views you espouse.

Hey, if everyone who was eligible and interested to vote did so, the outcome would be a lot harder to bitch about later. Although there is almost no literal voter fraud there is LOTS of stunts like hanging door knockers in "certain" neighborhoods telling them to vote on Wednesday. I have been involved in elections where this literally happened.

The first step is understanding the voting process and doing whatever it takes to vote. And yes, I'm a lefty lefty, but if voter turn out was high and nobody was turned away due to the stuff mentioned in this article, I would have to take my lumps and deal with it if the righties won.

Um, What's wrong with requiring a photo ID? EVERYONE over the age of 18, should have one, even if you don't drive. You vote where your official home residence is located. If that means going home or voting by absentee, then do so.

I dont see anything wrong with it. Not wanting voter fraud sounds like a good explanation to me, and posting an article simply claiming that there is no voter fraud isn't proof. With as much crap as there has always been with people voting who shouldnt be allowed to (aka, non-citizens) or someone voting under a name that's not their own, there is NOTHING wrong with wanting to make sure that there is one vote allowed per eligible persons.

Lord, I wish 2012 were over already for this reason.... I hate election years.

Most young adults do not know the process... Heck...MOST People do not know the process for voting absentee.

My son went to a Florida State school prior to the last election - when election date was coming close I mentioned to him about absentee - He had already taken care of it. He said there were booths out everyday with information about taking care of absentee voting. As he put it "you would have to deaf, blind & dumb to not take advantage of what was offered on campus to be able to exercise your Right to Vote".

I am sure college campuses will again have this information available to Students. They just need to "notice" it is there!!!!

College students and the college educated are a privileged population even if their income and debt ratio do not resemble such privilege, so this topic is about so much more than college student voting.

There is an historical context for everything. Voter requirements such as some form of an I.D. card works when the requirements are applied to everyone and when everyone truly has some form of an I.D.. However, that has not been the case in many cities/states. These requirements were most often applied to certain groups of people because officials knew these people were less likely to have the requirements and therefore would be less likely to vote. The I.D. requirement makes sense but some people (and government agencies) consider it too reminiscent of when certain groups of people were required to take tests to vote.

It is important to pay attention and to research. Organizations, including chapters of NPHC orgs, are working with local communities to teach people of voting age (the young and the old) the importance of staying informed and accessing voting stations. This is the only way to buffer some of the effects of the negative stuff.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501363_1...ce-department/

I hope the average Occupier is/gets informed and votes. I hope the average facebooker, twitterer, and youtuber is/gets informed and votes. I hope the average spender who is stalking the stores for these holiday purchases is/gets informed and votes.

You mean like the most recent one?

So here are my questions.

1. Paying out of state tuition back in the summer when I came from out of state has nothing to do with this little card I have in my hand now. Once the DMV issues that DL, I thought that officially changes your residency to your new state. Is that not true?

2. Interpreted by whom and are they relevant?

While I don't like this, I don't see it as the end of the world. Vote absentee if you have to, I guess. However, when I got to college there was a huge push for students to register locally. "You will spend 9-12 months a year HERE for the next 4 years. THIS is your home now, don't let it slip through the cracks. Vote on the initiatives, vote for the leaders whose decisions will affect you." If schools continue to get students all passionate about their new homes then the states pass something like this so the majority can't vote in them (including for the president), that is going to be a problem.

I don't think this is such a horrible thing. When I was in college, I voted by absentee ballot in my home district. I didn't really know anything about the district in which I went to school.

In 2008, there were a bunch of kids at this school switching their voter registration so they could vote here and "win Pennsylvania for Obama." I would LOVE to know how much research they did on the local elections, the results of which affect me directly...

This is stupid.

Unless your college address is your PERMANENT address - i.e. you intend to make it your home even after you graduate from college - you should be voting absentee in your parents' district or wherever it is your permanent home is. If you don't know how to vote absentee or don't figure it out soon enough in advance, guess what? You're too dumb to vote.

And there's nothing wrong with requiring state or federally issued photo ID. I have no idea of what, say, Bryn Mawr College does when they take their photo IDs. For all I know, they pick homeless people off the street and stick their pictures on random cards. Why should I accept this as proof of anything? You can't use a college ID for check verification or many other things either.

Fixed your ambiguous post. Whatever the school wants to do is not the state's business, or vice versa, and the states are the ones making the laws. I personally would question why the school is pushing this so much - it sounds like an indicator of a bad town/gown relationship and like the school figures it will be able to dupe the students into voting for things that aren't that great for the people who actually live there. The average Joes in college towns (I don't mean the profs and administrators) are usually on a MUCH lower socioeconomic level than the average students.

^^^Sorry about that. I guess I was typing too fast and a couple of words got left out of my sentence. You fixed it to what I had meant when I posted.

IMO The school was pushing for us to vote locally because that's thousands of people who were affected by the state's legislature who weren't voting for any officials or measures. Voting absentee in our home states was okay but what was the purpose? CA was my "permanent address" but that was really just a label. I don't reap any of the benefits or suffer any of the consequences of what was happening in California because for 70% of the year, I wasn't there. It made sense.

The problem, as I see it, with requiring picture ID for voting is that IDs cost money. If you require an ID to vote, you have to make that ID available for free, and that includes getting the person to the place where the IDs are issued. In some places that is a very tall order and is a way of disenfranchising the poor. Secondly, this type of voter fraud just doesn't happen. It's legislating against hurricanes in Kansas. Being able to present your voter registration card should be sufficient. If the government has done their job, you shouldn't be issued one of those without having been properly vetted.

And if we only let people who understood all the issues vote, there would be probably 1% of the population allowed to vote. MOST people have a series of issues they care about and just guess on the others. I, on the other hand, TRIED to research every state judge who was up for re-election and do you know I couldn't find anything, INCLUDING asking friends who are members of the bar? At the time, I knew a lot of very connected lawyers and they couldn't give me the first clue about who the good ones were.

But back to college students. Your college bill will be one of the most expensive things you purchase in your whole life and will undoubtedly affect your entire future. Why shouldn't you be allowed to vote at school? Also, colleges have a great history of teaching kids the importance of social activism. And that goes for both young Republicans and young Democrats. If you allow those kids to vote now, they are going to be voters the entire rest of their lives. History says once you vote, you are a voter for the rest of your life. So grabbing them at 18 is critical to the future of American democracy.

Now, we can get into an argument about whether we REALLY want democracy or if we only want the right people making our decisions for us if you'd like. I live in a place where the right people make the decisions for me. Thankfully, he is a really good guy and really does what is right for his country. But would I plan for that to be true for the next 225 years? Democracy works such that the right will win out over the wrong, even when you let the people you think are stupid participate.

Amen!

Exactly this. Don't think for one second that this is about keeping college kids from voting because they vote liberal. This is about keeping the poors from voting.

It's not "that easy" for everyone to get a driver's license or passport. There are a lot of people out there who don't have one. Assuming everyone should have one (without legally requiring it in general which would be a huge clusterfuck and making it free) comes from a place of relative privilege.

Not only the poor, but certain demographic segments of the population tend to be more likely not to have photo IDs. That is why efforts to require photo IDs are sometimes seen as little more than attempts to suppress the vote among minorty groups.

For example: Department of Justice objects to South Carolina's voter law

When I was an undergraduate (83-86) Hays County (TX) did all they could to prevent college students from voting in San Marcos because we skewed much more conservative than the rest of the county. College Republicans did a great deal of education to make sure students knew how to register and vote, and kept in touch to make sure they didn't pull stunts like telling students who were in line at the official polling close time they couldn't vote. We ended up being given credit by Texas Monthly for voting in the first Republican state senator since Reconstruction.

As for absentee voting, I lived in San Marcos all year - even students who didn't live there year-round lived there for the majority of the year, so the local politics would be of more immediate concern for students, not to mention the amount of money that constituency contributed to the local tax base. Having a voice there is important.

I can't buy some cold medicines without showing an i.d., can't get on a plane, can't open a bank account. Showing an i.d. to vote is a simple thing; if some groups need help to get their i.d.s community groups should help them do it. If the process needs to be simplified, then let's do it.

I am baffled that some people think that EVERYONE has an I.D. card. That assumption comes from a very privileged place.

(I posted the CBS News article on this. :))

To the people that this affects, buying cold meds would be a luxury, getting on a plane a fairy tale, and opening a bank account a life-long goal (if they trust banks). Just for perspective, here.

However, I too believe that people should have legal photo IDs to vote and have trouble believing that there isn't some sort of assistance program for those who want/need an ID. If someone is motivated to vote, then they should follow the necessary steps. Sometimes rights involve due process.

While I'm sure you didn't mean "due process" in its meaning as legal term of art, it's still pretty ... bad ... to connect that with techniques historically only used to suppress certain voter groups.

I didn't think "proper legal procedure" would much better and couldn't think of a more concise term.

Ditto!

Plus, if folks want to talk about dirty campaign tactics... what about bussing "poor people" to the polling stations in exchange for a vote for a particular candidate? "Aw, how sweet, they gave me free transportation so I could vote, but I have to vote for their candidate." Yeah, because THAT's fair. :rolleyes:

Exactly.

SWTXBelle, do you know how many people in this country cannot afford any type of medication, have never traveled outside of their communities (let alone traveling on an airplane), and were taught that bank accounts were either unattainable or even "bad"?

Discrimination is based on outcome and not intent because intent usually cannot be proven. Something that makes complete sense in theory can have discriminatory outcomes. As has always been the case, there is a combination of policy makers who truly want I.D. to verify who the voter is; and there are policy makers who only want to exclude certain power minority groups that are less likely to have I.D.

There are relatively few assistance programs that effectively reach the poor and disadvantaged (which includes the physically and mentally ill). This process takes yeeeeeeears. States should not make changes and expect the practices to immediately fit the changes. That is attempting after-the-fact solutions and that never works.

If I.D. is supposed to be a requirement of American citizens, and even some rite of American passage as though every American has one from birth, the government needs to do a better job at mandating this. Then it will be true that every documented birth citizen has an I.D.--or should have an I.D.. If the government is not going to do that, it will remain the case that after-the-fact policies regarding I.D.s will be intentionally and unintentionally exclusive.

Cold medicine = arguably not a basic right of American citizenship
Traveling on a plane = arguably not a basic right of American citizenship
Having a bank account = arguably not a basic right of American citizenship

Voting = DEFINITELY a basic right of American citizenship. So, the laws and policies need to be ensure that "everyone" has access to what they need to attain this right, if they want to vote.

There are a lot of dirty campaign tactics. This discussion is not about competing discriminatory practices. There is plenty of discrimination to share.

I hope you realize that dirty campaigning happens on both sides of the aisle and across socioeconomic groups.

ETA: DrPhil beat me to the punch.

What about bussing "old people" (I'm trying to figure out why you put "poor people" in quotes) to the polling stations in exchange for a vote?

What about knowing that certain segments of this country are less likely to have some form of I.D. and proposing that I.D. be required to vote?

Oh...wait....

Yes, there are those who do not, for a variety of reasons, have photo identification. They are a distinct minority ( looking at a variety of sources, estimates seem to range from 11% - 25%) , and if the problem is access to photo id (because of cost, transportation issues, etc.) than those problems should be addressed. I would fully support efforts to insure that all qualified American citizens were able to acquire id. All those community groups who work to register voters would seem to be a good place to start with efforts to get photo identification in the hands of possible voters.

That is really a separate issue from the idea of having to provide id at a polling place. Here's a better example for id opponents - If I wish to register my child for public school, I have to provide a plethora of identification and forms. Public education is a right, but it is a right which comes with requirements to exercise. Voting is a right, but we already have requirements in place to exercise it.

Currently in Texas if you do not have your voter registration card or id you can sign an affidavit at the polling place - it may be that something similar could work for the minority of American citizens who do not have id. I've had to use the affidavit - it took maybe 5 minutes to do.

LOL. That is EXACTLY why I posted it. Don't YOU see the irony? So the liberals can bus folks in to vote to stack the odds for their candidate, but the conservatives can't propose fair voting practice? Riiiiight.

It makes sense to me. "Fine, you want to bus in those people to vote, then make them have an ID to prove their citizenship and prevent fraud."

Can you address this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by agzg (Post 2114290) What about bussing "old people" (I'm trying to figure out why you put "poor people" in quotes) to the polling stations in exchange for a vote?

And why is this an issue during an election year? Why wasn't this proposed earlier?

(For the record, estimates are not to be confused with reliable data. The difficulty of assessing and accessing this distinct minority is why there are difficulties in conducting this research and factors such as identification cards.)

The bolded efforts need to be furthered before an I.D. is required in states where policy makers know a segment of the population does not have I.D.

No, it cannot be a separate issue.

It is all part of the same issue: The Right to Vote

Here is what Chicago Public Schools requires:

http://www.cps.edu/schools/enroll_in...checklist.aspx

You can see how a child can be placed in Chicago public school without the primary caregivers having forms of I.D. that would be valid for voting purposes. Public school sytems in areas with disadvantaged populations have searched for ways to address this disadvantaged population which includes accepting documentation that disadvantaged populations are more likely to have access to.


Perhaps this needs to be presented as an alternative.

It probably will not be presented as an alternative because affidavits will take longer than 5 minutes in areas where a lot of people do not have an I.D.

Plus, affidavits may conveniently get "lost" in certain areas that are not accustomed to poor people and other disadvantaged people coming to polling places. That is how it has historically been done in certain areas.

Like I said, this is not a competition. These are ALL practices with discriminatory outcomes.

One of many points here is that there is NO proof of voter fraud as a result of lack of photo ID. The only voter fraud (and I use that term lightly) I've ever heard of happened because the poll workers weren't checking the names off the list and people voted more than once. No ID in the world is going to prevent that from happening.

And puhlease. If you think only Democrats bus people to polling stations, you have not participated in a presidential campaign. Getting the disenfranchised to the polling places is a time-honored practice. The difference is Democrats pick up black people (the "poor people" mentioned above) and Republicans pick up old white people. It is against the law to sell transport or money for votes, and if that happens it's ELECTION fraud, not voter fraud and has nothing to do with the initial point about photo IDs. And let's also remember you can't vote just anywhere you want. If you live in a poor neighborhood you're voting in a poor neighborhood. And why don't poor people get to have their voices heard? Because they're not smart enough to not be poor?

That's what I figured :p ... completely understand.

The connection between "due process" and rights for the people (and onus on the authorities/state to follow prescribed processes to protect those rights), though, doesn't play all that well with what is essentially a poll tax - and, quite honestly, requiring ID is a form of poll tax.

Granted, it's a VERY low tax, money-wise - indeed, most of the 'tax' is on effort - and there are some perceived positives to guaranteeing each person is who they say they are. But it's still a poll tax. Whether the positives outweigh the rights issues is up to each person - for me, there are pretty easy solutions that don't involve this type of ID.

The problem I have with "there are no voter fraud problems" is that what should be said is "there have not been many documented voter fraud problems" or "the way we define voter fraud means there is none". I would argue that requiring id would prevent it, whether or not we have documented voter fraud. One of the problems with not having any identification required to vote is that it is difficult to detect fraud. How do you know who is or who is not voting legally if you have no requirements for proving that the voter is legally entitled to vote? Dead people voting - that doesn't happen any more? Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck voting - no longer a problem? Good to know.

If this was that much of an issue, why wasn't it brought up in 2009 or earlier? That would've at least given the "poor people" representatives an opportunity to set up some of these wonderful "Get an ID!" drives for their constituents.

Damn knight_shadow keeps reading my mind.

Generally speaking, the Democrats and Republicans only push voting requirements, including busing disenfranchised people, when it is an election that is considered especially important. That is part of what happened when Obama was running for office and Democrats were pushing people, many of whom had rarely or never voted, to vote. So, now the Republicans want the White House back and want to make sure those random "people in the 'hood" do not make their way to the poll stations like they did to help (they weren't the main voters for Obama but it helped) get Obama elected.

If voter requirements and voter fraud are a concern, keep it a concern. Do not make it a concern when it is convenient for a political front.

And I am all for every American having a free ID. A passport would be a perfect option, and to make that process less costly, the American passport could last for a longer period of time before expiring. In lieu of that, give everyone a driver's license equivalent and have it last for 20 years or so.

Next problem with requiring picture ID - if the voter roll doesn't also have a picture, what good does the picture ID do? So if I want to commit voter fraud, all I have to do is have 10 driver's licenses made up with people's names who I know won't vote. Easy peasy. A college ID is no less reliable than a state issued ID for just this reason. They're easy to fake and no more reliable than a voter registration card.

And by the way, I won't be voting in the next election. My current "home state" is Missouri and being one of those states that makes it hard to vote, I have to make an official ballot request, in writing, have it mailed to me (I don't have a mail box of any sort), fill it in, have it stamped by a notary (an expensive process) and mail it back. All of this has to happen within the window of time allotted, I think 8 weeks, and that is IF I can get the person at the election board office to respond to me, which she stopped doing some time ago because our vote was just too much work. If you live outside the US and are not active military, you are more or less unwelcome to vote. Which if my numbers are correct would help the Republicans, not the Democrats. Most of my American friends here are Texas Republicans. We don't talk politics much.

I am considering changing my home state, and may do that based on where I have contacts and is a swing state. Or they could let me vote in Missouri where my presidential and Congressional votes aren't going to mean squat.

It's been brought up dozens of times since (at least) 1909 - however, you're right that these concerns are generally only raised when politically expedient. That shouldn't be a surprise, but it also doesn't invalidate concerns over the practice.

You did indeed. :o In my post-Christmas haze, I missed it.

It doesn't work that way legally. Broadly speaking, if a state is going to impose a requirement that can have discriminatory effects, then to be able to defend itself against an Equal Protection claim under the Fourteenth Amendment, the state will have to show it has a compelling reason for imposing the requirement and that it tailored the requirement to meet that compelling reason but went no further. The possibility of voter fraud likely won't be good enough. The state will likely have to show that voter fraud is an actual, documented problem and that the photo ID requirement goes no further than necessary to address that problem.

The question I have is this: If the requirement of a photo ID doesn't keep people under 21 from getting fake IDs and buying cigarettes or alcohol, why do we think it will keep people who are determined to commit voter fraud from actually committing voter fraud? If you get past the first hurdle -- is this a real problem or not? -- you still have the second hurdle. Will this remedy, or at least lessen, the problem (without creating other problems)?

Um, didn't think there was anything to address. The quotes was for emphasis. We were talking about college students and the topic got changed to poor people. I was addressing the change in conversation, mmkay? Chill out.

Umm..no one was getting worked up, so there is no need to "chill out" ;)

Anyway, I think it was you who initiated the "poor people" conversation:

Quote:

Originally Posted by amanda6035 (Post 2114273) Ditto! Plus, if folks want to talk about dirty campaign tactics... what about bussing "poor people" to the polling stations in exchange for a vote for a particular candidate? "Aw, how sweet, they gave me free transportation so I could vote, but I have to vote for their candidate." Yeah, because THAT's fair. :rolleyes:

I asked you to address agzg's post because I was curious to see if you thought there was a difference between bussing poor voters and bussing old voters.

ETA: Actually, it doesn't look like you initiated it, but you did discuss it. My apologies. I am still curious about your opinion
re: the question above.