<p>I'm just curious to know about that: how many of you registered yourselves as voters in your college voting districts?</p>
<p>Few months ago I was reading on TIME that some small college towns were trying to scare away students considering to register themselves as voters where they study (instead of where their parents live) by means of sending misleading information on grant forfeit and possible loss of financial aid if a student register as voter outside her/his parents' district.</p>
<p>If I'm not wrong, some counties in North Carolina tried to ban students coming from other states from registering as voters where they study as attending college as undergraduate students would be deemed ato be in a "temporary stay with no intetion to settle" or something like that. A Circuit Court blocked such provision.</p>
<p>Personally, I think that students should be free to register to vote where they study, as they are formaly residents of those districts for an extended period of time. Denying it would be like taxation without representation. The argument of "intention to settle" would be something like equaling students with convicted inmates who cannot vote where they're locked up for obvious reason.</p>
<p>Sometimes student voted acitivism result in weird results, like harmful rent controls laws in place in Berkley, for instance, which have driven housing prices there well above the national trend for 2 decades (huge rental market, few incentive for new build-to-rent developments etc.). Even though, I think this is bareable consequence of granting students full voting rights. For good, Berkley student body is not representative of the great American nation (otherwise America would be very leftist if it embraced Berkley political views).</p>
<p>Still, most students I've met in US don't seem interested in political elections except hot contested ones or the choice of P.O.T.U.S.</p>
<p>It is my understanding that students don’t pay much in taxes where they go to school, they are typically not legal residents of their college town and it seems awkward that they could skew an election when they are essentially just “hitting and running.”
When and if they are legal residents, pay taxes (as opposed to being subsidized by the parents, school, state and/or fed) then they should be able to vote in the college town, but not before.</p>
<p>A lot of friends had issues voting where they go to school, as they were legally entitled to do. You cannot vote absentee in your first election, which we weren’t aware of until someone tried to do it and realized they couldn’t, so for a lot of us it was a big problem. I am not registered to vote in the Ann Arbor area because I live close enough to home to go home and vote, but a lot of my friends needed to be able to in order to be able to vote at all. </p>
<p>"As a registered voter, you may obtain an absentee voter ballot if you are:</p>
<pre><code>*
age 60 years old or older
*
unable to vote without assistance at the polls
*
expecting to be out of town on election day
*
in jail awaiting arraignment or trial
*
unable to attend the polls due to religious reasons
*
appointed to work as an election inspector in a precinct outside of your precinct of residence.
</code></pre>
<p>A person who registers to vote by mail must vote in person in the first election in which he or she participates. "</p>
<p>I can’t just stay in a state and register to vote without declaring residency. I don’t believe that someone should be allowed to register to vote if they are not a tax paying citizen of that state. However, under our current law, you can register to vote regardless of declared residency and in some cases is proof of that residency. </p>
<p>I guess I’m more on a principle stand point. I don’t believe attending college means you are resident of that state.</p>
<p>There are certainly laws passed that affect students in the area regardless of whether or not they “live” there. And then anyone that was unable to register to vote in person would be completely excluded from all elections, including national ones which they certainly have the right to participate in.</p>
<p>Living 4 years in a certain area is certainly more than just “hit and run”. A lot of young professionals (from auditing to preaching), taken as whole categories, move from one place to another far more frequently that once every 4 years in the beggining of their careers.</p>
<p>Students should mobilize do protect their interests, as college towns hugely benefit from (relatively) high-paying and stable education and academia jobs, cultural enchancement brought by Uni. programs, outreach activities, higher leves of volunteering whilst they are usually quick to promote “district” parking on the vicinity of campuses to prevent students to part their older cars in front of nice neighborhood houses, to forestall or restrict development of student-oriented business like clubs and pubs and so on.</p>
<p>I heard that some cities even demand that colleges make agressive campaigns against freshman bringing cars or living off-campus. It’s unfair: campuses mobility is quite low (I do not recall any recent prestigious university campus-wide relocation, though I think that it might be interesting to see one of the Ivies move out to, say, Denver, Omaha, Oklahoma City or Salt Lake City), so cities will most likely keep earning the benefits of a student-aged population and university presence but treating them unfair, sometimes as “not-so-welcome guests we need to tolerate”.</p>