USA Voter fraud alert: Watch Virginia

Voter fraud alert: Watch Virginia
By Michelle Malkin • September 20, 2008 12:28 PM Lots of Virginia readers are disturbed by a report in the Virginia Pilot yesterday on loosened voter registration rules for college students. Red flagging it:

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http://michellemalkin.com/2008/09/20/voter-fraud-alert-watch-virginia/

Suggesting that out-of-state students can vote in their home state as well as their college state. Norfolk is quite close to North Carolina.

It's election fraud, not voter fraud when officials illegally discourage eligible voters from registering.

This question has already been decided by the SCOTUS

FJ

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/08/education/08students.html
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: September 7, 2008

The widespread practice of students’ registering to vote at their college address has set off a fracas in Virginia, a battleground state in the presidential election.

Late last month, as a voter-registration drive by supporters of Senator Barack Obama was signing up thousands of students at Virginia Tech, the local registrar of elections issued two releases incorrectly suggesting a range of dire possibilities for students who registered to vote at their college.

The releases warned that such students could no longer be claimed as dependents on their parents’ tax returns, a statement the Internal Revenue Service says is incorrect, and could lose scholarships or coverage under their parents’ car and health insurance.

After some inquiries from students and parents, and more pointed questions from civil rights lawyers, the state board of elections said Friday that it was “modifying and clarifying” the state guidelines on which the county registrar had based his releases.

Student-registration controversies have been a recurring problem since 1971, when the 26st Amendment lowered the voting age to 18 from 21, and despite a 1979 ruling by the United States Supreme Court that students have the right to register at their college address.

Virginia is not the only state with murky guidelines. South Carolina’s voter-registration site, for example, says students who want to register to vote at their college address must demonstrate “a present intention to remain in the community.”

“There’s no issue for snowbirds who live in Iowa but fly to Florida for the winter,” said Sujatha Jahagirdar, program director of the Student Public Interest Research Group’s New Voters Project. “One demographic group, like students, shouldn’t have to overcome a special hurdle to vote. We impose all the responsibilities of citizenship on students, and we have to provide them with the privileges of citizenship, too.”

Ms. Jahagirdar said Virginia’s warnings were profoundly misleading. “We have been registering young voters for 25 years,” she said. “We registered 500,000 young voters in 2004, the majority on college campuses, and we’ve never heard of a single one who lost health insurance, scholarship or tax status because of where they registered to vote.”

In Virginia, the county registrar first issued an alarming release on Aug. 25, and two days later a slightly toned-down version using language taken directly from the state Board of Elections’ Web site.

That site says students can determine their legal residence, but advises them to consider certain questions. “Are you claimed as a dependent on your parents’ income tax return?” the site asks. “If you are, then their address is probably your legal residence.”

The site also tells students to check whether their coverage under their parents’ health or automobile insurance, or their scholarship, will be affected by changing their residence.

Civil rights lawyers say these guidelines are problematic and could infringe on students’ rights.

“What the state Board of Elections has on its Web site, to me, sounds like it is discouraging students from registering at their school address,” said Jon Greenbaum, director of the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Indeed, the Montgomery County registrar, E. Randall Wertz, said several students had canceled their local registration over their worry about the possible consequences. Mr. Wertz said he had issued the release to try to dispel confusion and explain what he believed to be the consequences of choosing a college address as a primary residence.

“My understanding of state law has been that by declaring you’re voting here, you’re saying this is your primary residence, your domicile, and that while you can have many abodes or residences, you can only have one domicile,” Mr. Wertz said. “And if this is your primary residence, you have to register your vehicle here, charge your driver’s license to here and so on. That’s been the interpretation at state training sessions.”

Kevin Griffis, the Obama campaign’s Virginia spokesman, said the release appeared to be a good-faith effort to convey state guidelines, not a politically motivated effort to stop voting by students.

Mr. Wertz said the initial release had been written by an intern whom he asked to summarize the guidelines. Although the second release used the state’s precise language, he said, it still left room for confusion. In other counties, registrars have refused to accept dormitory addresses as residences. But so far, the state has not set clear standards.

“Different registrars around the state interpret it differently,” he said. “We’ve asked for more guidance from the state legislature, but they haven’t wanted to deal with it.”

Mr. Greenbaum’s Voting Rights Project has been involved in other student-registration cases. Last fall, in Statesboro, Ga., in a hotly contested city council race, there were challenges to the registration of about 1,000 Georgia Southern University students who had used dormitory addresses. “We threatened suit, but the issue went away when they figured out that the challenges weren’t going to affect the results of the election,” Mr. Greenbaum said.

In 2003, in Waller County, Tex., the district attorney wrote a column in a local newspaper threatening to prosecute students at Prairie View A&M, a historically black university, for illegal voting. The project sued, and the district attorney backed down.

In the 1970s, that same county required Prairie View students who wanted to register to fill out a questionnaire asking, among other things, whether they owned property in the county, had an automobile registered there or belonged to any church, club or organization unrelated to the college. A challenge to that practice led the Supreme Court to uphold students’ rights to vote at their college address.

Martin said:

Norfolk election officials on Friday reluctantly loosened procedures for registering college students to vote after protests from presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign and an admonishment from state election officials.

Click to expand...

It is ironic that I need to show an ID when I recycle empty beer cans and the scrap yard needs to keep an accurate log among other records; but if you want to vote- the Dems have worked it so that an ID isn't necessary. Stange.

Conservative university could swing Virginia

Chancellor of Liberty University pushes to register all 10,500 eligible student voters
Liberty could be "the university that elected a president," chancellor says
Classes to be canceled on Election Day, buses to shuttle students to polls
Junior says majority of students at Liberty want John McCain to win

By Shea Connelly
Cavalier Daily

Editor's Note: Shea Connelly is a writer for the Cavalier Daily, the leading news source for the University of Virginia. This article was brought to CNN.com by UWIRE, the leading provider of student-generated content. UWIRE aims to identify and promote the brightest young content creators and deliver their work to a larger audience via professional media partners such as CNN.com. Visit UWIRE.com to learn more.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/30/conservative.liberty.university/index.html

Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. kicked off the voter drive by urging students to register locally.

(UWIRE) -- The commonwealth of Virginia has traditionally been a Republican stronghold -- the last time a Democratic presidential candidate won the state was in 1964.

But with recent polls showing Sen. John McCain only slightly ahead of Sen. Barack Obama, Virginia remains up for grabs. And the last two statewide offices -- for governor and U.S. senator -- have been won by Democrats.

Given the close nature of the presidential race, Jerry Falwell, Jr., chancellor of Liberty University, recently launched an ambitious effort to register all 10,500 eligible student voters at the fundamental Baptist institution in Lynchburg, Virginia.

Falwell kicked off the voter registration drive September 22, urging students -- including those from out-of-state -- to register locally.

"Liberty students have never been permitted to register locally in the past. The recent change in election law is giving Liberty University the chance to make history," Falwell stated in an e-mail addressed to faculty and staff. "Liberty University's 11,000 students and 4,000 faculty and staff could cause Liberty to become known as the university that elected a president!"

Since the announcement of the registration campaign, students have been offered voter registration forms by resident advisers during residence hall meetings and by professors during class. Jonathan Woods, a junior at Liberty and resident adviser, said he and fellow RAs were instructed to educate their residents about registering to vote during a regular RA meeting.

"That night, in our hall meetings, we had to explain that it's a good and unique opportunity," Woods said, "because not too long ago they [out-of-state students] weren't able to register in Virginia."

"It's definitely been pushed to vote," Rowe said, "especially to vote locally." Rowe noted, however, that he still plans to vote in Pennsylvania by absentee ballot.

"Pennsylvania is a swing state, too," he said.

In addition to the increased availability of voter registration forms, classes will be canceled on Election Day, and buses will be available to shuttle students to the polls.

"It's a major election -- they really want students to vote," Liberty freshman Bethany Hernandez said. "Some teachers are giving extra credit if you register to vote."

Falwell's belief that Liberty could impact the outcome of Virginia's election may seem like wishful thinking, but Virginia's 2006 U.S. Senate race was decided by slightly less than 10,000 votes.

"The majority of Liberty students want McCain to win," Woods said. "If you have a few thousand people voting for one candidate, who weren't [initially] voting in Virginia, it could possibly make a difference."

Ashley Barbera, communications director of the College Republicans National Committee, said college students have the potential to significantly impact the outcome of this election.

"I think you're going to see young voters and young activists playing a very important and crucial role," Barbera said, noting that many of the swing states, such as Virginia and Ohio, are home to a number of large universities.

"They're states where College Republicans federations are really stepping up to the plate," Barbera said.

Though the College Republicans National Committee is not working specifically with Liberty University's administration, Barbera said Liberty's voter registration efforts are consistent with College Republicans' national mission.

"Virginia is obviously a swing state, and the polls are showing how close that state is on a day-to-day basis," Barbera said. "If you could get potentially an extra thousand votes there, that could swing a state and that could determine an election."

Though Falwell may believe Liberty students can help to secure Virginia for McCain, College Democrats of America President Katie Naranjo is not worried.

"I feel very comfortable that young people will sway the vote in Virginia," Naranjo said, "and it will be a victory for Senator Obama."

Naranjo, referencing recent national polls showing Obama ahead by a few percentage points, suggested, "Maybe that's why Liberty is scared."

Jared Leopold, communications director for the Democratic Party of Virginia's Coordinated Campaign, said the Democratic Party of Virginia encourages all efforts to reach out to college students.

"This is a historic election," Leopold said. "For many young people this will be the first election they'll participate in. We encourage all college students to get registered." Though a majority of the students registered at Liberty will be voting for McCain, Leopold is not concerned.

"We've seen a lot of college students register across the state," Leopold said. "We're confident that a large majority of college students and young people will side with Barack Obama and the democratic ticket."

Regardless of whether Liberty voters affect the outcome of this election, Hernandez said the voter registration drive might just be the beginning of Liberty University's political influence.

"It could be a starting point. Maybe it won't change anything this time, but in the future," she said. "If the school keeps up the initiative, even just one little change is probably going to affect the future."

I am getting flashbacks of that election a few years back when I figured I would get wild and crazy and stay up real late to see if Bush or Gore won the presidency.....so sleepy all the next day and all for nothing.
I can see it happening again, months before we know who our President is.

Full Text Of Virginia Pilot Article

http://hamptonroads.com/2008/09/norfolk-officials-ease-rules-registering-student-voters

Norfolk Officials Ease Rules For Registering Student Voters

By Debbie Messina

The Virginian-Pilot

September 20, 2008

Norfolk election officials on Friday reluctantly loosened procedures for registering college students to vote after protests from presidential candidate Barack Obama’s campaign and an admonishment from state election officials.

The Illinois senator’s campaign complained that the Norfolk registrar’s policy of sending a questionnaire to anyone applying to register from a college campus discouraged students from following through. The State Board of Elections asked general registrar Elisa J. Long to halt the practice.

The Norfolk Electoral Board agreed to that but said in a statement: “This compliance is with the understanding that the Board strongly feels that by doing so, we are out of compliance with Virginia Election Laws.”

Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign in Virginia, said Norfolk’s practice was “completely ridiculous” and had “a chilling effect on voter registration on campuses.”

Obama’s campaign has been aggressively registering students in Virginia, viewed as a battleground state. Griffis said Obama “is energizing young voters in a way that’s not happened in a generation or more.”

Of Virginia’s 49,000 new registrations in August, 43 percent were age 23 and under, he said.

State law requires registrars to decide eligibility based on two components of residence: place of abode and domicile. Long said the questionnaire had been used to determine domicile and was based on suggested questions from the state elections office. Abode is address.

“The frustration is that the code says you may ask questions to help you make the determination of domicile, yet now we’re being told we cannot use a questionnaire,” Long said.

“Domicile is a tricky question; we don’t consider any one thing,” she said. Questions included whether the students pay out-of-state tuition, pay Virginia income taxes or have a Virginia driver’s license.

Long said she does not know how a student’s residency status now will be determined.

Mary Alana Welch, a 21-year-old student at Old Dominion University, received one of the questionnaires.

"It was a big deterrent," she said. "It gave me the impression I wasn't supposed to be registering here."

She said she never returned it and is still figuring out how to change her registration from Northern Virginia to Norfolk.

To cast her first vote, she wants to go to the polls instead of sending in an absentee ballot.

Long and the Norfolk Electoral Board are urging that the General Assembly clarify the student voter registration policy.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia agrees.

"College students are in a unique situation.... They live in two places," the organization's executive director, Kent Willis, said. "The state law does not address that properly."

"If homeless people have the right to vote by choosing their principal residence, college students ought to have the same right."

Long said she's now reviewing an application from a student from Savannah, Ga., who pays out-of-state tuition, is declared as a dependent in Georgia and has a Georgia driver's license and car registration.

"What automatically makes these out-of-state students Virginians?" she asked.

The Norfolk Electoral Board statement reads: "Although the revised policy guidelines places the burden of proof of residence with the person asserting it, the policy allows students to claim residence in Virginia unchallenged."

Firestorm s erupted in a few other Virginia college towns this month - including Blacksburg with Virginia Tech - over college student registrations, particularly those of out-of-state students.

Registrars in two other local cities with colleges - Virginia Beach and Williamsburg - said they do not use questionnaires. Newport News officials could not be reached.

Pilot writer Lauren King contributed to this report.

Debbie Messina, (757) 446-2588, debbie.messina@pilotonline.com