[EL] Student Voting

Mon Apr 20 13:41:53 PDT 2020

I vaguely recall a series of cases in MS where counting predominantly white student populations in county redistributing plans was found to violate Section 2.  Bolivar and Forrest Counties come to mind.  

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 20, 2020, at 11:36 AM, Pamela S Karlan <pkarlan at stanford.edu> wrote:
> 
>  The Census has a policy of counting students who live in university-owned housing (which overlaps significantly with on-campus) as residents of that housing.  See https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2020/modifying-2020-operations-for-counting-college-students.html for its decision to do this even though campuses have shut down and required students to move out.
> 
> Obviously, there is daylight between where people are counted and where they have their roots (think, most obviously, of incarcerated people — and look at Peter Wagner’s invaluable Prisoners of the Census website for more on this).  And when it comes to local elections, any given student will likely not be there years down the road to bear the consequences of local bond issues, etc.  But is it any more likely that an 18-22 year-old will be living at her parents’ house five years later (I imagine many parents hope not)?  And there is a constant presence of students in college towns, so should that bloc of residents not be counted at all in local decision making or should we think about it as a form of virtual representation?  And if only the student population provides an area with high enough population to merit a seat in the state legislature, should that too be adjusted downward if students aren’t allowed to vote there?  I know when I teach the voting rights class, these issues always (and not surprisingly) prompt a good discussion.
> 
> Pamela S. Karlan
> Kenneth and Harle Montgomery Professor of Public Interest Law
> Co-Director, Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic
> Stanford Law School
> 559  Nathan Abbott Way
> Stanford, CA 94305
> karlan at stanford.edu
> 650.725.4851
> 
>>> On Apr 19, 2020, at 8:57 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>
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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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