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Discouraging College Students from Voting

No, we didn’t do any traveling this Memorial Day weekend. But no, it’s not because I’m addicted to blogging, but because my wife, Erika, graduated from San Jose State University with a double major in Anthropology and Behavioral Sciences, plus a minor in Women’s Studies. I am so very proud of her! And a little jealous, since she got so much more out of her college experience than I did. Instead of diving into schoolwork (like I did) or just partying and cruising by, Erika got involved. And I mean involved! She has blossomed into an impressive leader, serving in a variety of student groups1.

She also served on student government while fighting passionately against the rampant corruption perpetrated by many Greek fraternities and sororities who leverage their powerful networks to land cushy high-paying jobs for themselves and their friends (apparently, a phenomenon that’s pretty common across the country). Arguably, not a far cry from what actually happens in our “real” elections.

Indeed, my wife, ever the activist, forwarded an e-mail to me revealing yet another example of the kind of corrupt politics from which the above Greeks probably learned their craft. The e-mail highlighted a Rolling Stone piece by Damien Cave, Mock the Vote, which details cases of many local officials discouraging students from voting in local and national elections. Sometimes they even use illegal tactics, like requiring students to vote where their parents live despite the fact that “[f]ederal and state courts have clearly established that students have the right to vote where they go to school, even if they live in a dorm.”

The whole article is well worth reading, and it cites numerous other examples:

In May 2002, the city council in Saratoga Springs, New York, shut down a polling place at Skidmore College, forcing students to travel off-campus to vote. That same year, a judge in Arkansas tried to block 1,000 students at Ouachita Baptist University and Henderson State University from casting ballots, ruling that they must vote in their hometowns — even though the deadline for absentee ballots had already passed. And when students from the University of New Hampshire showed up at the polls on Election Day that year, poll workers handed them a pamphlet warning them that voting locally could affect their financial aid and taxes. The scare tactic worked: Many students left without voting.

And there are some obvious parallels:

Much as local registrars in the South once used poll taxes and literacy tests to deny the vote to black citizens, some county election officials now employ an intimidating mix of legal bullying and added paperwork to prevent civic-minded young people from casting ballots. “Students have been singled out for outright discrimination,” says Neal Rosenstein, government-reform coordinator for the New York Public Interest Research Group. “If someone was challenging the voting rights of a military person who is stationed somewhere temporarily, we’d be screaming that it’s not patriotic. There shouldn’t be any less of a standard for students, who work and pay sales taxes in those communities.”

And on this Memorial Day, let me point out that there are few things less American than trying to deny others the right to vote. After all, our whole independence movement started with the notion of “no taxation without representation.” Of course, reality rarely lives up to idealistic expectations. The reality of politics is that the powerful consider voting to be a hindrance. Although Republicans are the ones who gain the most from excluding college students, both parties have employed disenfranchising tactics. Indeed, Democrats have used similar obstacles for military voters for similar reasons.

It’s not that surprising that both parties seek to minimize voter turnout of the other side. But also note that both parties are perfectly content having a low total voter turnout, which inevitably happens when the tone of the debate turns negative and when both sides poach ideas and positions from the other, resulting in inconsistent platforms. It is well known that voter turnout in the U.S. is much lower than other countries, but neither party hardly ever makes proposals to address it, like compulsory voting2 (Australia), or making election day a national holiday (Canada and Britain).

The truth that both parties know is this: the fewer people that vote, the fewer people you need to manipulate.

The issue is akin to the gerrymandering employed by both parties, creating districts that are overwhelmingly one party or the other, thus making many election outcomes a foregone conclusion. This takes power away from the voters and into the hands of the political parties negotiating the district borders. And of course, this lowers voter turnout even further, as voters ascertain that their vote won’t make a difference in such a system. Note that the Electoral College has a similar effect.

So disenfranchisement of anybody should not be a partisan issue any more than gerrymandering, low voter turnout, or ensuring a voter-verifiable paper trail in electronic voting machines. We all benefit if our government accurately reflects the will of the people, and I think it’s apt to modify Voltaire’s famous saying on free speech to also be, “I may disagree with your choice for whom you intend to vote, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to vote.”

For further information on the disenfranchisement of college students, see Rock the Vote, and their action center.

¹ Among other things, Erika has served as President of the Anthropology club, served as the chair of the Student Union board, completely remade and transformed the Women’s Resource Center into a place worth going to, organized her campus’s trip to the March for Women’s Lives in Washington D.C. (and her fundraising helped San Jose State send the largest student contingent of any school in California), and helped put together her school’s production of The Vagina Monologues that raised over $9,000 this year. And she served in student government as the Director of Communications (and unlike her predecessors, actually did the job). Return

² I realize that there are many arguments against compulsory voting, including the obvious libertarian issues, but my point is that compulsory voting isn’t even debated at all in this country. Neither side brings it up, because neither side considers the overall low voter turnout to be a problem. Return