[EL] Student Voting

Sun Apr 19 14:36:55 PDT 2020

I think that it is pretty basic legal analytic tool to determine if an idea
is actually fully fleshed out and/or authentic to see if the proponent of
it actually advocates its logical extrapolations.

I, who don't believe in poll taxes, limits of voting to land owners, or any
of those other right wing historical notions, also disagree with the idea
that students with actual physical connection to a place should be
prevented from registering to vote there.

I do think powerful economic entities like corporations, which have
objective indicia as to the top most likely places* where they ought to be
domiciled... should be compelled to choose one of the plausible ones. I
think believing that a student who lives 9/12 months somewhere shouldn't be
able to choose a place to vote... but corporations with 1/1000 of sales
ought to be able to choose Delaware (or the Cayman Islands) as their
"home," suggests... a lot about an individual. I think believing one can
build common sensical tests to assess residency of people and corporations
is worth doing, and concepts like "math" can help, as would consistency.
i.e., we should have similar standards for corporations and people with
respect to choice of laws.

* Yes, there would be grey areas under any test for corporate domicile, but
the fact that an absolutely clear yes may not always exist in no way
undermines the idea that some purported answers will clearly be wrong.

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 5:16 PM James Bopp Jr <jboppjr at aol.com> wrote:

> Jeff, what difference would that make one way or another? What does your
> question have to do with the interesting and thoughtful point Brad was
> making?
> ------------------------------
> On Sunday, April 19, 2020 Jeff Hauser <jeffhauser at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
> <https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2faka.ms%2fo0ukef&c=E,1,YGi8syCEIupcAIttsQQ3BcpR4lDzjDv7mBGqN90Xxqs_w33bIbzUnEPKIVccfB3vXazyx9Fjr5NTL4U53uKIcgC6FOX_d2CDIYW3biBGlRQ4808Cp18Y5JJWuxk,&typo=1>
> >
>
> ________________________________
> 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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