On February 24th, the Election Law Committee of the New Hampshire House of Representatives held a public hearing on House Bill 176, legislation that would disenfranchise college students from voting in the state. If enacted, the bill would redefine domicile for students and federal government employees as the state in which they claimed domicile before moving to New Hampshire, essentially forcing them to vote absentee in a state where they no longer reside.
The proposed bill has been lambasted on constitutional, legal, and moral grounds. But the most distressing implication of HB 176 is its innate assertion that students are not truly members of their state and local communities, that the stake we hold in our politics is mitigated by the location where our parents happen to reside. The bill tells us, "Vote somewhere else."
But here in New Hampshire we live by a very different creed. In this state we say, "Live Free or Die." And last Thursday, college students, constitutional scholars, county clerks, elected officials, and ordinary citizens from all over the state and running the full political spectrum showed up in force to voice their strong opposition to the legislation.
The bill raises both state and federal constitutional questions, violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965, flies in the face of legal precedent from the 1970s overruling similar measures in a New Hampshire federal district court, and would inevitably lead to a flurry of practical implementation issues down the road. But setting these myriad faults aside, what truly unites opponents of HB 176 is our belief that the proposed law is anathema to the core values of New Hampshire and the United States.
Voting is both a fundamental privilege and obligation of citizenship. State House Speaker William O'Brien recently claimed that college students vote, "too liberal," "with their emotions," and that they lack sufficient "life experience" to vote in the state.
The last time we checked, the Constitution affords all citizens who are at least 18 years of age the right to the ballot box, and the idea of the government choosing who can or cannot participate in the democratic process on the basis of arbitrary value judgments should terrify every single American that holds their vote dear.
College students volunteer in their towns and communities, pay local property and meals taxes, and are undoubtedly affected by the laws enacted within their state. HB 176 smacks of political cynicism and the students and citizens of New Hampshire will not stand for it.
This is why at Dartmouth, the College Democrats, College Republicans, College Libertarians, and Student Assembly have joined forces to stand in solidarity against this bill. The testimony delivered at last Thursday's hearing is unequivocal proof that students care deeply about their local communities and the state at large.
The right to vote is an issue that is simply too important to be subjected to partisan politicking. We will continue to speak out in this battle. We will continue to be invested in our state and in our politics. And we will continue to tell the State House, as we did last Thursday, that in the United States, and in the state of New Hampshire, the government does not choose its voters.
The voters choose their government.
This post was originally published on Rock the Vote's blog.
Thomas Bates: Victory in New Hampshire
Shawne Merriman: Any Given Election Day
Where you parents live, where you used to live, where you parents used to live.....are all quite irrelevant.
Owning property is irrelevant.
Where you plan to live in 3 or 4 years or even 1 year is irrelevant.
Whether you are a student is irrelevant. You are going to let a 19 year old non-student vote, but not let the 19 year old student who lives next to him vote. That won't hold up in any court.
Having students vote in their home town does not mean the students are being disenfranchised. Absentee ballots cast in their home towns does not present a hardship.
And students certainly pay sales tax.
You want them to vote somewhere where they dont really live?
The evidence that supports the Power of the Youth vote in the last election is a call to arms for some and will be worth their focu$ed effort.
That is what I would do.
Our youth are a Big Stick.
SO, expect full on assaults of any youth participation.
Attempting to disenfranchise and huge number of voters who happen to vote against you? Unconstitutional and reprehensible.
It sure is not a stretch to use the "deficits" to reshuffle the labor market to their no bid contractors.
"Voting as a liberal. That's what kids do," he added, his comments taped by a state Democratic Party staffer and posted on YouTube. Students lack "life experience," and "they just vote their feelings."
Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/06/AR2011030602662.html
In other words, they want to take voting rights away from students - granted by the Constitution at the age of 18 - because they vote Democratic. Sickening. The Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to turn the United States into a one-party country.
Is that justification for stripping the right to vote in national elections without using an absentee ballot? Clearly not. Even in local elections, the concept toes a fine line, as the schools and their students make up a huge share of economic activity in most NH college towns. Certainly, from the long-time residents' perspective, the college populations are wildly left-leaning, and very transitory.