In the Daily Caller today, Executive Director Michael Thielen discussed the complicated issues around registering out-of-state college students to vote in battleground states. The article highlight how this issue raises gray legal and ethical issues, which are often disregarded in favor of political advantages.
[W]hy aren’t we upset when students do the same thing? Would we really accept the fact that adult commuters who work in New York and Boston and leave for their true homes on the weekends can vote in the city if it is in the strategic interest of a political party? Would we accept adults who are periodically working in a state or city voting there even when they have no real intent to live there? The answer is a resounding no. Worse, why aren’t we troubled that a political party uses students as political pawns on a regular basis?
. . .
Legal definitions about eligibility to vote in a state vary from state to state, but state residence, domicile, inhabitance, or similar requirements usually contain the intent to live there for the foreseeable, or undetermined, future. A person who enters a state with no intent to remain usually does not meet this standard, and many college students have no intention to remain in the place they go to college. But some students do meet the legal standard, and this is why student voting location is so tricky. There is no set rule or answer for students, but the needs of a political party is not an ethical or acceptable way for a student to figure out where he or she should vote.
Americans would not be pleased if a multimillionaire politician, who owns several homes opted to register to vote in one property which happens to be in a battleground state, over his actual residence in another non-battleground state--solely based on a political factor. However, this is exactly what has happened in the past with students (and we blogged about this in 2014):
In 2008, then-Senator Obama’s campaign started a program nicknamed “float the vote”. This program involved telling students to vote where it was most politically advantageous for the Obama campaign and not where the student felt they “resided” or where they met the legal definition of residency or domicile for purposes of voter registration. This program unfortunately encouraged white lies for short-term political gain by encouraging students to state under oath that their college town was their permanent home and they intended to stay and vote. The program also undermined federal law that authorized and encouraged students who were away to vote by absentee ballot in their hometown.
. . .
Float the vote demeaned voting from a patriotic right and duty to something strategic that included a bit of lying about where students really lived. There used to be safeguards in some states, such as Virginia, whereby students would be asked a series of simple questions when registering to see if they really resided in Virginia. This matters, in part, because there many more elections than just the Presidential election. However, Democratic Virginia Governors Tim Kaine and Terry McAuliffe appointed Democrats to the Virginia Board of Elections that eliminated these questions. McAuliffe also attempted to effectively eliminate voter registration questions on citizenship and felonies by saying those who did not answer would be automatically registered. The reason why they did so was quite simply the perception, backed up by polls, that felons, non-citizens, and students overwhelmingly vote Democrat.
The article closes on this point:
To be clear, liberals’ rhetoric about student voting has nothing to do with defending “poor students” or whether students have a right to vote and everything to do with obtaining more votes in close races. . . The Democratic Party encourages this tactic because polls show students tend to vote Democrat. It should not be contentious or controversial to say that students should have the same right to vote as everyone else, nothing more and nothing less.
Work needs to be done to reign in this behavior. It is unethical to target these students--from non-battleground states attending college in battleground states--just because their vote would have a greater impact while away at school and irrespective of where they intend to be after college. This should be a undebatable, nonpartisan issue, but sadly is not.
The Democratic Party has recently taken to using cries of voter suppression as an attack against Republican elected officials, candidates, and policies. From limits on early voting to voter ID, Democrats are quick to levy the charge of voter suppression, but a professor from UC-Berkely recently held up a mirror to the country's left-wing and revealed an ugly reality.
From 2001 to 2011, Democrats have been responsible for a massive suppression of voter turnout through their opposition to consolidated election cycles. It is a well-known fact that off-year elections yield the lowest voter turnout. What many not realize is that there are other, more sporadic election cycles in the country as opposed to just odd-year voting in November. In New Jersey, for example, state elections are held in November of odd years while school district elections are held in April and fire district commissioners are elected in February.
Professor Anzia asked a nationally representative sample of Americans if they prefer elections to be held at different times for different office "because it allows voters to focus on a shorter list of candidates and issues" or consolidated elections "because combining the elections boosts voter turnout for local elections." Voters responded with a clear preference for consolidated elections.
So, given this obvious preference, why isn't there a push to move toward these consolidated elections cycles? Well, from 2001 to 2011 there were approximately 200 bills put forward nationwide to cut down on the number of separate elections and ease the burden on voters. Of these bills only 25 became law. Most interestingly, a majority of the bills were sponsored by Republicans and failed because of Democratic opposition at the urging of Democratic-aligned interest groups, including teachers unions and municipal employee organizations.
Why? Because Democrats know that the voters who turnout in off-year elections tend to have a special interest in the issues or candidates on the ballot. These Democratic groups crave low voter-turnout because they know they will be able to get their members to the polls and that their vote will have a disproportionate impact in favor the groups' liberal agenda.
So while the Democrats are happy to champion voter-rights when it serves as a useful, albeit dishonest, attack on Republicans, it seems they are less inclined to do so when it stands in the way of their policy objectives.
