[EL] Student Voting

Sun Apr 19 13:57:43 PDT 2020

Again, I'm sure Bradley Smith has gone to great lengths in his public
service to ensure that corporate America never locates itself in such a way
to minimize (or at times wholly avoid and/or evade) taxation.

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 4:43 PM Smith, Bradley <BSmith at law.capital.edu>
wrote:

> This is an issue of growing concern in small towns across the country,
> too, I've recently discovered, for reasons beyond picking "battleground"
> states in high profile elections. It was brought to my attention by local
> residents of my small college town, which recently passed a permanent
> school income tax. The measure passed by 188 votes overall, but by 304 in
> the precinct that contains the our college. Because this is a small town,
> virtually none of the students will remain in town after graduation. But it's
> pointed out that virtually none of these student voters obtain Ohio
> driver's licenses or license their cars in Ohio, which new residents are
> required by law to do within 30 days of moving to the state. Ohio is
> relatively unique in that lots of small towns and cities have income taxes.
> These are taxes off gross, world-wide income, assessed on residents. The
> students neither file local returns nor pay the income taxes (which should
> be levied, for example, even on income earned at their "former" home in the
> summer, if they are actually village residents). A great many publicly list
> themselves on social media as residents or citizens of where they went to
> high school.
>
> In theory, these other accoutrements of residency could be enforced on
> students who vote in the village, or, alternatively, their right to vote
> could be challenged. In practice, officials seem frightened to take such
> steps, perhaps because they fear being accused of voter suppression, or of
> lawsuits against their jurisdiction if they seek to enforce residency
> requirements on either end. Of course, there is no vote suppression,
> because the students could vote from their old homes.
>
> *Bradley A. Smith*
>
> *Josiah H. Blackmore II/Shirley M. Nault*
>
> *   Professor of Law*
>
> *Capital University Law School*
>
> *303 E. Broad St.*
>
> *Columbus, OH 43215*
>
> *614.236.6317*
>
> *http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx
> <http://law.capital.edu/faculty/bios/bsmith.aspx>*
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Law-election [law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] on
> behalf of Pildes, Rick [rick.pildes at nyu.edu]
> *Sent:* Sunday, April 19, 2020 11:56 AM
> *To:* Election Law
> *Subject:* [EL] Student Voting
>
>    ** [ This email originated outside of Capital University ] **
>
> 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
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> >
>
> ________________________________
> 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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