Student Voting Rights Is Still A Problem

In 2004, Rock the Vote's work highlighting the problem of student voter rights brought national attention to a problem that many have brushed under the rug for a long time. Working with a broad coalition of groups including the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights, Student Voting Rights Campaign, New Voters Project, ACLU and many others, Rock the Vote put the issue of student voting rights on the map.

While we are confident that our preventative measures helped prepare students to protect their own rights, we can't claim to have solved the problem in each locality. And unfortunately, the issue isn't going away.

This just in from the Student Voting Rights Campaign on the Virginia elections:

Over one thousand students attempting to participate in Virginia’s gubernatorial race have faced obstacles or outright denials as they attempt to register to vote in their college towns. The problems surfaced when organizers for the New Voters Project, a non-partisan organization with the goal of engaging young people politically, turned in registration applications for students across the state. At Radford University, where nearly 700 students filled out registration applications, the local registrar responded by denying the applicants or sending a two-page questionnaire asking – among other things – examples of their community activities.

By disseminating such a questionnaire exclusively to students, local registrars have effectively raised the bar for qualified young people attempting to participate in their democracy. In Virginia, where the suffrage of homeless persons is defined by “where one lays their head at night,” meticulous scrutiny of only student applications is tantamount to voter intimidation or worse.

Radford isn’t the only place where students will be excluded from the governor’s race. In Norfolk, 250 student applications were outright denied. Additional applicants were given a questionnaire almost exactly like the one issued in Radford. In Williamsburg, where William & Mary students registered with ease from dorm addresses prior to 2004, 100% of on-campus student applicants were denied. The local registrar justifies the denial by calling their dormitory a “temporary address,” but these students – who often have internships away from their parents’ home during the summer – spend less than three months per year away from Williamsburg. The problems caught the attention of the William & Mary student assembly, which unanimously passed a “Declaration for Student Enfranchisement,” calling for the “restoration” of student voting rights within the community.

The problems have been reported in media across the state. On October 26th, the Daily
Press reported, “the local registrar said student dorm addresses don't prove that most students have established a domicile or permanent address in Williamsburg.” Meanwhile, the non-partisan Election Protection Committee has created a hotline to protect every citizen’s right to cast a meaningful ballot. The hotline, 1-800-OUR-VOTE will be operating this Tuesday, November 8th for any person who experiences problems on Election Day.