[EL] Student Voting

Sun Apr 19 15:03:05 PDT 2020

I'm suggesting rules for determining domicile ought to be consistent.

On Sun, Apr 19, 2020, 5:52 PM Ilya Shapiro <IShapiro at cato.org> wrote:

> I’m confused. Are you suggesting corporations be allowed to vote?
>
> Ilya Shapiro
> Director
> Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies
> Cato Institute
> 1000 Mass. Ave. NW
> Washington, DC 20001
> (o) 202-218-4600
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> Twitter: @ishapiro
>
> http://www.cato.org/people/shapiro.html
>
> On Apr 19, 2020, at 5:38 PM, Jeff Hauser <jeffhauser at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 
> 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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>>
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