WARNING FOR COLLEGE STUDENT VOTERS!!!

[cui bono]

I don't know if this has been posted before, but it's certainly important enough to be repeated if it has:

Warning for College Student Voters

Last week, Virginia’s Montgomery County, home to Virginia Tech, issued a press release regarding proper protocol for college students registering to vote. In interviews with Inside Higher Ed Tuesday, it was described by turns as “unsubstantiated,” “chilling,” and (more generously) as not “incredibly encouraging or friendly.”

It reads, in part: “The Code of Virginia states that a student must declare a legal residence in order to register. A legal residence can be either a student’s permanent address from home or their current college residence. By making Montgomery County your permanent residence, you have declared your independence from your parents and can no longer be claimed as a dependent on their income tax filings — check with your tax professional. If you have a scholarship attached to your former residence, you could lose this funding. And, if you change your registration to Montgomery County, Virginia Code requires you to change your driver’s license and car registration to your present address within 30 days.”

The county registrar of elections said Tuesday that the memo was intended to counteract the absence of cautionary information given to students signed up through the ubiquitous get-out-the-vote registration drives. Generally speaking, however, those interviewed for this article said the warnings are, at worst, farfetched and misleading, or, at best, overstated and not typically supported in reality.

And, in a year in which historic youth voter turnout is anticipated, and the Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has been propelled by college students’ support, this case in the battleground state of Virginia is “not an isolated incident,” said Sujatha Jahagirdar, program director for the Student Public Interest Research Group’s nonpartisan New Voters Project.

“For a county registrar to issue what really are in our experience unsubstantiated warnings for a particular demographic is alarming,” said Jahagirdar. “It’s upsetting that this is coming up in Virginia. But it’s even more upsetting that the ability of young people to vote is questioned in many other states too.”

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/09/03/voting

[sasquatch]

1. Why isn't this guy in a jail cell for violating people's voting rights?

[bridgit]

2. "a student must declare a legal residence in order to register" will be the slippery slope...

that slides onto the entire Obama base of voter appeal believe it!!

I've said for months; that where Obama was to have come out from the gymnasiums filled with cheering pom-poms and back flipping mascots and made undeniable foundations into the neighborhoods where people live things would be undeniably just & so. I am however sorry to inform, but dorms are considered less permanent residence' as they are considered transitory even where a student is to reside throughout their thesis & whatever Masters/Phd may follow. Some may even transit further afield...

They have already tagged a world filled with txt mess'ed polling data as less than acceptable...the rest is right there on the horizon. Be prepared for the greater disenfranchisement of all things Obama.

These are the matters, and I have spoke upon them in other threads; but these are the matters that go to longitudinal relationships to community, hearth & home.

I was at university. University was not my per se home. University was where I, yes lived, but more to the point studied. At this rate, voting will be soon the province of where you live and contribute to the environ and no...bruskies at the pub near the quad will not be considered as viable as where, for instance, your mom & dad may be paying taxes.

I am not saying that is right, I'm just suggesting that that may be where this is all heading good luck!

[grannie4peace]

3. aclu put a stop to that BS

[cui bono]

4. kickin' for importance

I realize this isn't as juicy as some of the other stuff, but this could actually throw the election.

Come on folks, stay on target. We need the youth to vote and we need those votes to count!!!