If you’re a college student in North Carolina, this legislation impacts you. Check out my post on the Devil Dems blog:
What this means if you’re a Duke student: hold on to your voter ID card. Given how buzzing the Duke Card Office is most days, this might be a challenge for the average college student. The BOE across the state will have to be very conscientious about explaining to people that they must maintain their voter ID card. I’ll give the Republican party due credit for attempting a compromise.
But….
I’m still not convinced that a solution is necessary, because …. Read More
2 comments ↓
Voting Rights apply to all, not just students or the poor or the rich, or the famous. A North Carolina Voter must meet age and RESIDENCY requirements. Unfortunately our laws have been relaxed for College Students who do not meet the test for Residency Requirements so that they may vote in NC elections.
What I have seen is students coming in to Vote:
A – were sent by a coach or professor for a grade or requirement
B – Were clueless who to vote for
C – Were told who to Vote for
D – are never educated on being an informed voter including how to vote if you are absent from your state of residence
E – Cannot read the basic instructions for completing a registration form.
I would also like for you to consider local elections for a moment, county commissioners, city council and school board members. Especially in more rural areas, elections for these offices can be decided by less than 5 votes (examples available if needed). If you have a campus in your midst, candidates with access to a university population can use that to skew an election. This happens both on Republican and Democratic sides, and is unfair to all since many of these students are clueless about the local dynamics and issues.
While an elections board member, we offered to go on campus and instruct students about registering, absentee voting and answer any questions that they may have. We were told by a county commissioner to “Leave Our Students” alone. It seems like he owned them.
Students should be open to all sides and make informed decisions. This is their time to test the waters on the direction that they personally and politically want to take. But first they need to learn that voting rights do come with requirements and responsibility.
Hi Betsy!
I’m not sure if you follow my blog or not, but I actually am a college student. I’m from North Carolina (Charlotte), but I go to Duke.
Contrary to your statement, college students more than legally meet the residency requirements under law. Our law states that “Every person born in the United States, and every person who has been naturalized, and who shall have resided in the State of North Carolina and in the precinct, ward, or other election district in which the person offers to vote for 30 days next preceding an election, shall, if otherwise qualified as prescribed in this Chapter, be qualified to vote in any election held in this State.”
Your anecdotal evidence doesn’t match up with my experience. I’ve driven hundreds of students to the polls (most Duke students don’t have cars and wouldn’t have any way to get a DMV issued id!). I’ve talked politics with them and gotten into debates, even about local politics.
College students are in their hometowns at most 25% of the time, and at school about 75% of the time.
College students drive on North Carolina roads. If they get arrested, they’ll be tried in North Carolina courts. They volunteer in North Carolina schools and non-profits. They read North Carolina newspapers. While not all are native North Carolinians, many of those not originally from North Carolina will reside in North Carolina after graduation.
Why is it so surprising to you that many college students want to have a say in what happens in the states and cities in which they attend university?
Why does it make more sense for them to vote in places that they may actually never reside in (plenty of college students, especially from far away, return to their parent’s domiciles only for Christmas, if at all)?
Speaking of election law, it would be against the law to specifically try to prohibit certain groups from voting. The only reason to require additional forms of ID would be if you had evidence that people were voting under other people’s names.
I’m sad that you’ve had such bad experiences with college students, however, none of the problems you’ve mentioned are unique to college students. I’d encourage you to read the Duke Democrats blog (dukedemocrats.wordpress.com) if you’d like another experience of what NC college students think about local and state issues.
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