The fight for voting rights continues for students today
According to an editorial in yesterday’s New York Times, barriers to student voting are common and complex. We couldn’t agree more and are thrilled to see the powers-that-be taking to our cause.
The attention comes after a local TV station in Tucson, Arizona, reported that students who register to vote at the University of Arizona “may have unintentionally committed a felony.” (Free registration req’d.)
The controversial broadcast featured Chris Roads, a local Pima Countyregistrar, who stated "If they're only here to attend school and theintention is to immediately return to where they came from when school's over then they are not residents of the state of Arizona for voting purposesand they cannot vote here."
By law in Arizona, you are eligible to register to vote if you are a U.S.citizen, at least 18 years of age, and you live in the state for 29 daysprior to the general election. Chris Roads failed to make this point in hison-air interview; his supervisor Ann Rodriguez had to step in and clean up the mess with a press release clarifying the facts.
With all the uproar, the TV station, a Fox affiliate, is backtracking.Falling short of an apology, Fox now says that their sources were wrong. (Registration is also required.) But serious damage has already been done, as the station ran the story multiple times.
The reporter, Natalie Tejeda, gets the prize for being outrageously stupid--so stupid, in fact, that we really question her motives. And by not going out of his way to shoot down an obviously bad story in the making, Chris Roads is equally guilty in this bizarre web of young voter intimidation.
With issues at the forefront of the presidential campaign whose implicationscould last for decades--the war on terrorism, the makeup of the Supreme Court, health care reform--young people have more reason than ever to fightfor their right to vote.
Alex Sherman
The attention comes after a local TV station in Tucson, Arizona, reported that students who register to vote at the University of Arizona “may have unintentionally committed a felony.” (Free registration req’d.)
The controversial broadcast featured Chris Roads, a local Pima Countyregistrar, who stated "If they're only here to attend school and theintention is to immediately return to where they came from when school's over then they are not residents of the state of Arizona for voting purposesand they cannot vote here."
By law in Arizona, you are eligible to register to vote if you are a U.S.citizen, at least 18 years of age, and you live in the state for 29 daysprior to the general election. Chris Roads failed to make this point in hison-air interview; his supervisor Ann Rodriguez had to step in and clean up the mess with a press release clarifying the facts.
With all the uproar, the TV station, a Fox affiliate, is backtracking.Falling short of an apology, Fox now says that their sources were wrong. (Registration is also required.) But serious damage has already been done, as the station ran the story multiple times.
The reporter, Natalie Tejeda, gets the prize for being outrageously stupid--so stupid, in fact, that we really question her motives. And by not going out of his way to shoot down an obviously bad story in the making, Chris Roads is equally guilty in this bizarre web of young voter intimidation.
With issues at the forefront of the presidential campaign whose implicationscould last for decades--the war on terrorism, the makeup of the Supreme Court, health care reform--young people have more reason than ever to fightfor their right to vote.
Alex Sherman
posted by Anonymous at 12:01 PM
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