[EL] College Student Voter Suppression

[J.H. Snider]

It's a bit more complicated as I understand it.

My son registered to vote many weeks ago and waited until now to get the absentee ballot.  The deadline for the Maryland State Board of Elections to receive a request for a physical absentee ballot was June 17 and so had already passed for my son when he tried to vote today.

Assuming that college students don't wait until the last minute to sign up for an absentee ballot, my guess is that many won't check that box because they don't think of themselves as having a physical mail box and rarely use it.

The physical ballot would solve the envelope and address problem but not the physical mailing and stamp problem.  The instructions are: "You must mail or hand deliver your voted ballot. You cannot submit your voted ballot online, return it by email or fax, or take it to an early voting center or a polling place."

There is also an additional minor obstacle I wasn't aware of.  Getting a physical absentee ballot is a two-step process: requesting the ballot and then returning the ballot once received.  To avoid physically mailing the ballot request (which would involve getting an envelope, stamp, etc.) one must print it out, sign it (the step that presumably requires the ballot to be printed), scan it, and email it back.  This solves the physical mailing problem in the first step but adds a printing and scanning obstacle.  It appears that the Board of Elections is willing to mail out the physical ballot but not the ballot request form.

But I agree that the problem is not as troublesome as I first thought.

Sincerely,

J.H. ("Jim") Snider

From: Michael J. Hanmer [mailto:mhanmer at umd.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2014 11:26 PM
To: J.H. Snider; law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: RE: College Student Voter Suppression

Here is a link to the absentee ballot request form: http://www.elections.state.md.us/voting/documents/2014_Absentee_Ballot_Application_English.pdf .

Registrants have the option of having the physical ballot mailed or getting an electronically delivered ballot.

Best,
Mike


Michael J. Hanmer
Associate Professor & Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Government & Politics
University of Maryland
3140 Tydings Hall
College Park, MD 20742
mhanmer at umd.edu<mailto:mhanmer at umd.edu>
https://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvpt/hanmer/



From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of J.H. Snider
Sent: Wednesday, June 18, 2014 9:34 PM
To: law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<mailto:law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Subject: [EL] College Student Voter Suppression


My son, a rising sophomore at Yale College who is attending an intensive foreign language summer program out-of-state, recently called home with a most surprising problem.  Excited that at age 19 he is finally able to vote, he had diligently signed up with the Maryland Board of Elections to vote by absentee ballot for Maryland's statewide June 24 primary.  Since, according to my son, the Maryland Board of Elections no longer mails physical ballots, he received an electronic ballot which he was instructed to print out, fill out, place in an envelope, address, and mail back.  Sounds simple enough, right?  Well, it turns out my son, like many people his age, had rarely mailed an envelope before-a skill most people of older generations master in the third grade.  He not only wasn't entirely sure about how to address an envelope, but he certainly didn't have either an envelope or a stamp on hand in the one bedroom apartment he's renting for the month.  He also didn't have a printer to print out the ballot, since he generally walks a few blocks to the library to print out papers.  He originally thought that today was the deadline for voting by absentee ballot, but he turned out to be wrong on that, so it is possible he'll learn between now and election day how to use the United States Postal Service. But he has three major tests next week, so he just may not bother.

Now this is a technologically sophisticated and (we thought) reasonably intelligent and motivated young man.  He sends thousands of text messages a month and has been using email regularly since grade school.  He spends hours a day using his iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air, and I'd classify him as an expert user of some very sophisticated software programs.  But mailing an envelope?  He thinks that is a skill with as much use to him as reading cursive handwriting, paper maps, and analog clocks-all things, again, that people used to master long before reaching voting age.

I imagine that us old folks aren't very sympathetic to someone who hasn't learned a skill we consider absolutely fundamental to adult living.  But you could also argue that requiring post office literacy represents a new form of vote suppression.  I suspect that there are many college students similar to my son and that their number is growing all the time.  It seems to me that Maryland should do one of two things: allow my son to order an old-fashioned absentee ballot with a return envelope and hopefully return postage, or complete the transition to electronic voting.  Since the latter seems politically impossible in Maryland, the former would appear to be the only feasible method to eliminate this type of college student vote suppression. Alternatively, those who want to encourage college students to vote might want to set up shop on campuses and hand out envelopes and stamps the way they already escort certain disabled groups of voters to the polls.

If someone thinks this analysis is faulty, please let me know.

--J.H. ("Jim") Snider, Ph.D.
President of iSolon.org<http://www.isolon.org/>
Administrator of RhodeIslandConCon.info<http://rhodeislandconcon.info/>
(202) 540-0505

For my most recent op-ed on election law, see 'Dark money' drives R.I. constitutional convention votes<http://www.providencejournal.com/opinion/commentary/20140613-j.h.-snider-and-beverly-clay-dark-money-drives-r.i.-constitutional-convention-votes.ece>, Providence Journal, June 13, 2014.

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