[EL] New effort to restrict student voting in New Hampshire

[Greabe, John]

Hello everyone,

I am no election law expert but am an avid reader of this list-serve and Rick's blog.  I thought that some of you might be interested in a bill that has been proposed in the New Hampshire Senate.  The bill would amend the definition of domicile for voting purposes to provide the following:  "A student at a college or university operated by the university system of New Hampshire or the community college system of New Hampshire who is paying the tuition rate established for out-of-state students shall be considered to be claiming domicile in a state other than New Hampshire."  Like many states, New Hampshire imposes a durational residency requirement (12 months) before students at USNH institutions who become New Hampshire citizens can avail themselves of in-state tuition.

I will be providing a statement to the Senate committee considering the bill tomorrow morning.  I will be opining that the amendment would be unconstitutional under Dunn v. Blumstein, 405 U.S. 330 (1972), in that it would have the effect of imposing a durational residency requirement for voting on New Hampshire citizens who move to the state to enroll at a USNH institution.  I also will be opining, more generally, that any attempt to adopt a definition of domicile for voting purposes that is narrower than the federal definition of state citizenship would be unconstitutional.  This second opinion tracks an argument I made in a short, recent paper that responded to similar efforts by the New Hampshire House in 2011.  If anyone is interested, that paper is available here:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1923980

Comments, questions, and suggestions are all welcome.

John Greabe
Professor of Law
University of New Hampshire School of Law
(603) 513-5191 (office)
(603) 344-1933 (cell)
SSRN Author Page: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=874015
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20140129/3069d20a/attachment.html>