When election season rolls around, college students do one of three things: fill out absentee ballots, register as Massachusetts residents in order to vote locally, or nothing at all. That’s their prerogative as American citizens. But now, proposed legislation in New Hampshire is attempting to change the entire voting process wihin its state, making it much more difficult for young adults away at college to have their voices heard.
The proposed legislation would remove students’ rights to participate in their college town elections if they haven’t been living in the area or don’t intend to stay. That means students from anywhere other than New Hampshire at, say, the University of New Hampshire, wouldn’t have a say in who’s elected governor in November.
Regardless of any agenda pressing this travesty forward, this potential law must be stopped. For years, the media has presented the now-college age demographic as lazy, apathetic and ultimately uninterested in political issues, despite the fact that that demographic helped guarantee Barack Obama a spot in the White House.
There’s no doubt that if this law is enacted, many other states will follow suit. That isn’t fair to students who are invested in their college towns and aren’t any different than the local residents who either aren’t going to school or have been there for years. Allston residents who go to Boston University, for example, contribute as much to the area’s economic prosperity as longtime tenants. They have a right t o want to change the precinct if they so desire.
From that perspective, the question remains: who gets to determine what “community ties” are and how they play into voting? If someone is taking the initiative to vote, then they’re obviously invested in the community. Attempting to scrutinize that any further will have terrible implications for voters.
The right to vote is integral to the American way of life, and this ultimately looks like a case of blatant disregard for the modern voting system. College students should have the opportunity to fix what they see as unfit and shouldn’t be punished for traveling outside of their home states to experience something initially unfamiliar. If anything, they should be welcomed into new communities with open arms and allowed to blend with the Constitution-granted rights of any other citizens.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
