States Battle Over New Voting Laws

May 1, 2011

New Hampshire, North Carolina, and Wisconsin, among other states, have become battlegrounds for debate on proposed voting laws that would change voter eligibility for many people, most notably college students, according to the Washington Post. For example, New Hampshire House Republicans are promoting a bill that would permit students to vote in their college towns only if they or their parents had already established permanent residency there. This also means everybody else in the state can only vote in his or her district of residence. This may not have seemed directly pointed at college students until New Hampshire’s Republican state House speaker, William O’Brien, said that college kids are “foolish.”

“Voting as a liberal. That’s what kids do,” said O’Brien, adding that students lack “life experience,” and “they just vote their feelings.”

Another proposed bill in New Hampshire would eliminate Election Day voter registration. Thirty-two states are currently considering making an ID requirement for voters. Democrats suggest that Republicans are using these measures as ways of curbing the power of Democratic voting blocks, in these cases college students and minorities.

“It’s a war on voting,” said Thomas Bates, vice president of Rock the Vote, which supports youth voting and is preparing to fight the proposed voting bills. “We’d like to be advocating for a 21st–century voting system, but here we are fighting against (turning) it back to the 19th century.”


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