New Hampshire Rep. Gregory Sorg (R- Grafton County) is being accused of trying to prune the voter rolls of presumed liberal voters by barring college students from voting. His “Voters Attending Institutions of Learning” would tell students to vote back home.
The law would establish that “the domicile for voting purposes” of a college student would be the town or city “in which such person had his or her domicile immediately prior to matriculation … even though his or her intent to return thereto is uncertain.”
I have serious constitutional doubts over the viability of the law, particularly in terms of vagueness and equal protection. However, it is the motivation that is now being questioned after the release of comments by Speaker of the House William O’Brien (R-Hillsborough), who told a conservative group that college students registering to vote on Election Day “are basically doing what I did when I was a kid and foolish, voting as a liberal.”
Supporters, however, insist that college students increase the danger of voting fraud in the state.
The proposed law states in pertinent part:
654:2-b Voters Attending Institutions of Learning.
I. The domicile for voting purposes of a person attending an institution of learning shall be the state, or the town, city, ward, or unincorporated place in New Hampshire, in which such person had his or her domicile immediately prior to matriculation, even though such person may no longer reside in said state, town, city, ward, or unincorporated place, and even though his or her intent to return thereto is uncertain. The domicile for voting purposes of a person attending an institution of learning shall not be the place where the institution is located unless the person was domiciled in that place prior to matriculation.
So, even if the student does not reside in another state and has no plans to return to the earlier state, New Hampshire will refuse to recognize his or her domicile for purposes of voting? Matriculation is generally defined as “to be admitted into a group, especially a college or university.”
The problem with the bill is not the right of the state to define who is an eligible voter, but how they are going to disfranchise students who attest that they consider New Hampshire to be their home or do not intend to return home to their original state. In terms of equal protection, how are they going to handle military personnel who under federal law are allowed domestically. Presumably, they can continue to vote in New Hampshire despite not living in the state. How about missionaries and others living abroad? Those voters are guaranteed federal voting rights under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA). They will be presumably allowed to vote in New Hampshire elections, but not students.
The denial of state voting to students could lead to complications for joint federal and state elections. It also could lead to challenges based on the 26th Amendment which was drafted in part to overturn Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112 (1970) where the Court found Congress could not compel states to register 18-year-old citizens in state and local elections.
While the federalism arguments behind this bill are compelling in many circumstances of voter regulation, this bill would use federalism principles to cut out voters and thereby dictate electoral results. It would effectively say that the voters of New Hampshire should decide such questions but we are not going to allow a significant number of prior voters to be heard on such questions.
It would bar these voters on highly speculative grounds to fighting voter fraud without a showing that such fraud is the direct result of college students voting or that such fraud can be avoided without disenfranchising young people.
Notably, while politicians are constantly complaining about young people not being involved in politics and voting, this bill would bar students from getting involved. They are much more likely to be motivated to vote in their college and university towns. I am astonished not to see any response from educational organizations in opposition to this proposal.
These legislators have a rather narrow view of the state motto. They may pledge to “Live Free and Die”, but it does not mean live here. However, if you die in New Hampshire, you will presumably be considered fully domiciled.
Source: The New Hampshire and Reddit
Jonathan Turley
RE: Tootie, January 31, 2011 at 11:16 am
The out of state students are visitors.
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Given that I have yet to meet a living person who, having lived longer than eternity, has demonstrated being unable to die, methinks we may all be visitors while living on earth.
So, if visitors have no rights where they are presently living…?
Carleton College has a 3-2 plan, three years at Carleton and two at an approved engineering school and bachelors degrees in both liberal arts and in engineering.
Why disenfranchise people from life before their bodies die?
RE: Buddha Is Laughing, January 31, 2011 at 11:48 am
Yeah Tootles. All universities are run by leftists. For example, Regents and Bob Jones University and Oral Roberts University and Hillsdale College and all those other schools completely devoid of actual educational content in their mission to spread their conservative ideology which is often out of touch with reality. A good education does in fact foster liberal values…
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Liberal values espoused may not be liberal values in use. What a person says may be starkly contrary to what the person does.
Some folks conveys to me the most drastic separation between values espoused and in use that I have ever encountered.
I experience such folks as having a most implausible property.
As a person whose liberal values espoused and in use are contiguous, and who finds no less value within conservative values as within liberal values, I may have formidable pragmatic experience in sorting out whose speech in words and in actions are not even of a forked tongue, but more like a snake with two heads, at opposite ends, all for tongue ends repudiate what the other three tongue ends express. In such a snake, the mouth of one head is the anus of the opposite head.
Of course, no such snake actually exists.
I find that Hillsdale College, Calvin College, and many similar institutions of higher learning provide genuinely excellent education for their students.
And I find bullying offensive and lacking in what I might guess I might deem civility, were I capable of such guessing.
Methinks there is nothing that can be done that is inherently outside the realm of the rule of law.
Such as with and in The Weimar Republic?
Elaine, two of my daughters graduated from Syracuse which is also a private school and I am pretty sure they were allowed to vote in New York. Much to Tootie’s dismay!
Encouraging people to come spend money at institutions of higher learning in your state can only lead to bad things.
Truth be told, I suspect that voter fraud is less an issue and feelings of “outsiders” taking over is the true motivation. From townies up through modern Know Nothings, nativism is alive and well.
rafflaw,
My daughter attended one of those private colleges in NH.
Tootie,
You do realize that their are also private colleges in NH where tuition is not based on state residency, don’t you?
Yeah Tootles. All universities are run by leftists. For example, Regents and Bob Jones University and Oral Roberts University and Hillsdale College and all those other schools completely devoid of actual educational content in their mission to spread their conservative ideology which is often out of touch with reality. A good education does in fact foster liberal values. This is partly because liberal values come from the realization that there is more to making the world better than simply making it better for yourself at any cost. The fostering of liberal values also comes from exposure to the realities of the world through an undistorted lens. For example, the realization that resources are not infinite – a reality that cannot be ignored – when not combined with selfishness but rather with that “evil” humanism and egalitarianism you so despise, will naturally create the truthful knowledge that the best way to make the world better is to work to make the world better for all and not just yourself or “your team”. That proper education is a threat to conservatives – who depend upon myopia and stupidity to sell their agenda of greed and dominance – is reflected perfectly in the perpetual battle to de-fund and/or distort education to their ends.
And as far as foreign workers and the lobbying behind the issuance of H-1B visas? You have once again missed the mark. If “hiring foreigners” and the lobbying for it is your issue? Take it up with Microsoft, Oracle and Intel before you start in on schools that usually don’t have money to lobby for squat other than basic funding.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/02/19/us-workers-usa-idUSTRE51I60N20090219
Students aren’t necessarily “visitors”. man6y take up residence in the summer and remain near their university after gradutaion. The bill is filled with dubious assumptions.
This shit was successful in Michigan…ask John Engler…the dromedary governor….he packed it in for himself and screwed the rest….he gets a House, Senate and Governors Salary while blasting career politicians…. then went to work for EDS and NW Air and now is a consultant in DC…..
Oh, and if the colleges and universities in NH stepped up and said something against this, these out of state students wouldn’t have to pay HIGH out of state fees (since the law would essentially make them residents).
And we know colleges and universities are run by leftists. And they lust for money, money, money, and more money and shudder to think they would miss out on this price gouging.
This is why colleges and universities hire foreign teachers and workers in unlimited numbers (they lobby government for this).
It’s all about money, money, money, and more money.
The out of state students are visitors. Just like if you are staying with a relative in another state but are still a citizen of your previous state. Maybe you are taking care of an elderly family member for a few years and don’t know when you will return (this was my status a number of years ago.)
I’m sure they would need to have an exception for students who were citizens of New Hampshire before they matriculated within NH. They indeed are still citizens and have a right to vote in NH.
I assumed this is how it worked for most students. At least it did my offspring to attended school out of state and voted in elections from the state he left (and was born in and where his parents lived).
He didn’t vote in the elections of the state he was going to college in. And his rights were equally protected because he got to vote as often as I did.
This is just one more example of Republican vote fraud. The Dems need to come out and call this what it is, an attempt to deny students the right to vote and the right to decide where there domicile is. The Republicans are doing this kind of thing all across the country as eniobob and Swarthmore Mom have already suggested. In Wisconsin they are now trying to push a voter ID law through. A law that will impact the poor and elderly more than anyone else.
Back in the early 1900’s the Democrats partnered with the Republicans and went state by state changing the voting laws making the formation of a third political party as difficult as possible. It took a few years for them to reach the goal of ensuring their permanence. Their joint campaign succeeded brilliantly and they changed the face of representative democracy in this country forever.
I remind everyone of the role “gerrymandering” plays in Federal redistricting each time a state changes parties.
I mention these two points in an attempt to illustrate how Republicans intend to gain the advantage for their party in each state by pushing through state-level bills similar to the one we see Rep. Sorg presenting. Each state will have its own identified area of change … more than one per state.
They will distract the public with hate filled, divisive, angry speech on the national level so that the real damage can be quietly wrecked at the state level.
They have 4-5 years to prepare for 2016 … the strategy is set. The Republican Party is like any other large corporation … the needs of the country be damned … ensuring their own position of power within the country is the goal.
**New Hampshire Rep. Gregory Sorg (R- Grafton County)**
Is representing what the current, “republican party” ?
Is trying to do all across the country on so many different levels in trying to steal our government as we know it.
The students vote for the democrats. In a small state it can make a difference. They want to make sure Obama does not carry the state in 2012.
I suggest New Hampshire citizens set this strawman on fire.
Photo identification is rapidly moving through the Texas legislature. It is one of Perry’s priorities. Blouise is right about paying attention to what is happening locally. This is where the republicans plan to make their 2010 victories permanent.
How can a state take away a citizen’s right to vote in a national election?