Boards of Elections ... No Friends to Students

An editorial in today's New York Times underscores the apparently nationwide hostility of local Boards of Election toward college-age voters (thanks to Lowell for the link). We've seen this hostility up close and personal here at home, in the Watauga County Board of Elections' recent refusal to move the polling place for Boone 3 precinct, which is over 80 percent ASU students, to a building on campus. That polling place is currently at the Agricultural Conference Center, a location without easy access via sidewalks from the campus, and students living on campus generally do not have ready access to their vehicles.

The writer for the NYTimes opined: "It is nice to think that elections officials want to do everything they can to help young voters. But the truth is, many cities and towns with colleges and universities regard student voters ... as a challenge to the established order. As a result, local elections officials often discourage students from registering and voting from their campus addresses, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that they have the right to do so."

What follows are notorious examples of young voter intimidation of the sort that we're quite familiar with: In Texas, a Republican district attorney threatened to prosecute students if they registered to vote in his county. It took a lawsuit to shut that DA's pie-hole, and he had to apologize for the threat. In New York, a local elections official told a student that he was not a "permanent resident" and would have to register where his parents live. In Arizona, a student was told he might be committing a felony if he registered to vote in his college town.

"Even when they are not actively discouraging young voters, election officials are often unwilling to take steps to make it easier for them to vote. They often resist appeals to put polling places on campus, one of the best ways to make students feel included in the electoral process." We know, we know!

Locally, ASU students have been told they'll be harrassed for jury duty immediately upon registering to vote in Watauga County, that they'll be subject to personal property taxes, that the sheriff will put them under investigation. All lies. Lies, in fact, that amount to crimes, since the intentional intimidation of voters is a misdemeanor.

The local Board of Elections was also poised to demand identification from first-time voters proving their dorms as their physical addresses -- information NOT provided on ASU student IDs -- until the North Carolina State Board of Elections issued an edict saying that student IDs were a valid form of identification, whether or not they listed dorm addresses.

There are some people who obviously stand to benefit if 18-24 year olds sit out this election. It'll be so much easier to draft them into El Presidente's foreign wars, if they're disengaged from the political process that put him in power.