[EL] Student Voting

Sun Apr 19 12:03:54 PDT 2020

Just wanted to jump back in on the issue of intent to remain. To me, one of
the most interesting things that came out of the Niemi et al. article is
that the intent to remain idea falls apart very quickly as a way to
restrict student registration. It is a big part of the dialogue and states
often list it as a requirement; but our view is that intent to remain
should not, as a legal matter, be part of the consideration.

I am getting out of my depth regarding how closely tied intent to remain
and intent to return are, but Trevor's post on intent to return suggests
states could be very flexible.

Best,
Mike

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 12:12 PM Jeff Hauser <jeffhauser at gmail.com> wrote:

> If one were to address systemic "choice of jurisdiction" issues in
> America, I would think the corporate law race to the bottom (think:
> Delaware and some newish competitiors (e.g., NV)) would be rather higher on
> the list than university student voting.
>
> Indeed, choosing between one of 2 facially plausible options for primary
> jurisdiction is vastly less tortured than the justifications of allowing
> corporations to choose a state that is rarely among the 25-48 most
> significant to their operations or sales.
>
> On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 11:57 AM Pildes, Rick <rick.pildes at nyu.edu> wrote:
>
>> More broadly on the subject of student voting, students are the largest
>> group of voters who often have the choice of voting in one of two states
>> (the other are military voters, but that’s a much smaller group).  Whenever
>> I poll my law students in election years, most of them tell me they will
>> vote in whichever of their two options is the closest to being a swing
>> state in the presidential election, to the extent they can legally choose
>> either.
>>
>>
>>
>> I’ve often thought from a systemic perspective this is an area in which
>> we’d  be better off with a uniform national policy, at least for federal
>> elections.   That won’t happen, politically, but every election cycle in
>> many states we face political struggle, litigation, confusion about this
>> issue, as well as the fact that a number of states change their laws on
>> this from one election to another.
>>
>>
>>
>> Would Congress have the power to adopt legislation on this for national
>> elections?  This is a borderline issue in constitutional law.  States have
>> the power to determine the qualifications needed to be able to vote, even
>> for national elections.  So states would have the power to determine
>> whether they only permit residents (usually defined as presence and intent
>> to remain) to vote or also permit those who are merely domiciled there to
>> vote.  But once states chose residency, for example, Congress might have
>> some room to regulate what’s required to prove bona fide residency.
>>
>>
>>
>> But this is a theoretical issue, because Congress is highly unlikely to
>> have enough consensus on the right policy to legislate on this at all.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Law-election [mailto:
>> law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of *Trevor
>> Potter
>> *Sent:* Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:57 AM
>> *To:* Michael J. Hanmer <mhanmer at umd.edu>; Election Law <
>> law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
>> *Subject:* Re: [EL] Fwd: Where can college students vote this November?
>>
>>
>>
>> “ residence” and “permanent domicile” are of course a matter of state law
>> for these purposes. However, my understanding is that many states
>> incorporate the concept of intent— the voter is currently living elsewhere
>> but had established residency in the state and intends to return , even if
>> they have no current abode in the state. This applies to members of the
>> military, for instance.
>>
>> Get Outlook for iOS<https://aka.ms/o0ukef>
>>
>> ________________________________
>> From: Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> on
>> behalf of Michael J. Hanmer <mhanmer at umd.edu>
>> Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2020 10:46 AM
>> To: Election Law
>> Subject: [EL] Fwd: Where can college students vote this November?
>>
>> Looks like I sent only to Charles.
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> Begin forwarded message:
>>
>> From: "Michael J. Hanmer" <mhanmer at umd.edu>
>> Date: April 19, 2020 at 10:23:23 AM EDT
>> To: Charles H Stewart <cstewart at mit.edu>
>> Subject: Re: [EL] Where can college students vote this November?
>>
>> 
>> Dick Niemi, Tom Jackson, and I have a 2009 ELJ piece that covers the
>> issue of college student voting. Tom is a legal scholar and led the
>> sections involving legal analysis.
>>
>> Here are my thoughts, some of which I am not very sure of. I agree with
>> Charles that the legal scholars should weigh in.
>>
>> Students who haven’t yet established residence in the college town can’t
>> register in the college town, just as anyone planning a move that hasn’t
>> happened yet can’t register in the new place ahead of arriving at the new
>> place. For unregistered students who have lived in the college town but
>> don’t have an active lease, it would seem they too can’t register in the
>> college town until they start living there.
>>
>> I think things get tricky for students who are registered in their
>> college town if they have leases that expire. If they establish a new
>> residence they can register there and get an absentee ballot under the
>> usual rules. If they don’t establish another residence in the college town
>> I am not sure what happens. If they want to vote in their college town by
>> absentee ballot they should be able to get a ballot with the presidential
>> race. I could see local discretion influencing whether they get a full
>> ballot.
>>
>> The question on the Census is interesting too. I saw the same guidance
>> Charles noted from citizen groups. The online Census form also had
>> instructions to that effect.
>>
>> Best,
>> Mike
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>> On Apr 18, 2020, at 9:23 PM, Charles H Stewart <cstewart at mit.edu> wrote:
>>
>> 
>> This question has come to me, and seems to present an interesting twist
>> that requires an answer from a legal scholar, not a political scientist…
>>
>> Let us say that in the upcoming fall semester, a university says that
>> their students have to stay “at home” and cannot live on campus. The
>> student in question lives out of state. The student in question would
>> otherwise have qualified to vote in the state where they were a student.
>> Can that student vote absentee in the locality where they are enrolled in
>> college?
>>
>> This seems to be a major twist on the question of where students are
>> domiciled for the purposes of elections when they are away from home to go
>> to college.
>>
>> I will note that MIT students received an e-mail from the administration
>> saying that for the purposes of the Census, they will be counted as living
>> at MIT, even though the campus had evacuated. I know that this has
>> little-to-no bearing on the question about domicile for voting, but it is
>> an example of how one legal fiction has ignored campus evacuations.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Charles
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------
>> Charles Stewart III
>> Kenan Sahin Distinguished Professor of Political Science
>> Director, MIT Election Data and Science Lab
>> Co-Director, Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project
>>
>> Department of Political Science
>> The Massachusetts Institute of Technology
>> Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
>> 617-253-3127
>> cstewart at mit.edu
>>
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-- 
Michael J. Hanmer, Ph.D.
Professor and Director of Graduate Studies
Department of Government and Politics
University of Maryland
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