by Maria Castillo Examining the Recent Wave of Student Disenfranchisement By Olivia Choi

EXAMINING THE RECENT WAVE OF STUDENT DISENFRANCHISEMENT

Olivia Choi Unprecedented engagement by youth voters with a conspicuous leftward shift in their politics amounts to a palpable threat for Republicans in 2020. Recent data from the Pew Research Center reports Gen Z and Millennials are the most liberal generations to date. Larger proportions of these age ranges favor expanded government and progressive approaches to climate change, racial discrimination, and gender fluidity when compared to prior generations. Such developments come in light of skyrocketing rates of participation in midterm voting by college students. The rates of college students voting in midterm elections have more than doubled from 2014 to 2018, increasing from 19.3 percent to 40.3 percent. While historically more reliable than midterms, voting in presidential elections is on an upward trend as well, rising three percentage points between 2012 to 2016.

What has followed these developments, however, is a concerted movement by conservative legislators to curb youth voting access and wrest back Republican control. Such tactics amount to nothing less than voter suppression.

Florida elections package SB 7066, which was approved by Governor Ron DeSantis to go into effect on July 1st of this

year, effectively eliminates polling places on college campuses by requiring early voting sites to have “sufficient non-permitted parking.” Due both to relatively low vehicle ownership among students and school-issued student parking passes, very few college campuses have non-permitted parking. And Florida’s recent legislation is merely one amidst a wave of laws passed this year that suppress student voter turnout.

Arguably the most popular weapon of choice by voter suppressors is increased infringement upon two indispensable risy is Texas law HB 1888. The legislation prohibits mobile voting stations, many of which are located on or near college campuses because establishing permanent stations there would be too costly and logistically infeasible. Texas House Representative Greg Bonnen, champion and author of HB 1888, has described the bill as necessary to prevent “selective vote harvesting.” Bonnen acknowledges that “the flexibility of polling locations was designed to accommodate more voters near their homes and their workplaces,” but argues will suffer reduced or eliminated access to the franchise.”

The tangible irony in Bonnen’s hypocrisy is that HB 1888 is expressly designed to do just the opposite of what he, the bill’s author, claims. In effectively eliminating critical polling locations for college voters across the state, the aforementioned legislation actively suppresses democracy. If Republican lawmakers genuinely had vulnerable voters’ interests at heart, they would have expanded voting access to those areas they purport to be excluded—rather than disenfranchising mas

“If Republican lawmakers genuinely had vulnerable voters’ interests at heart, they would have expanded voting access to those areas they purport to be excluded—rather than disenfranchising massive sectors of the youth voting bloc. Instead, Republican legislators found a convenient excuse to suppress one of the fastest rising liberal-voting demographics in the nation...”

methods of ballot access for college students: early and absentee voting. This year, Arizona legislators enacted Senate Bills 1072 and 1090, extending voter ID requirements to apply to early voting and restricting access to emergency early and absentee voting. Indiana’s new law HB 1311 requires voters to submit an absentee ballot application 8 days prior to the election rather than 12, and Indiana SB 560 limits state court power to extend polling location hours.

Furthermore, a measure particularly salient in its hypocthat “some subdivisions of the state have abused this flexibility, targeting desirable voting populations at the exclusion of others.” In a complaint filed by the Texas Democratic Party, however, the plaintiffs note that the bill would disproportionately disenfranchise college voters rather than increase their voting accessibility. The complaint contested that “based on where they live, some voters will enjoy the same consistent access to early voting they had previously, but voters who live near now defunct temporary voting sites, especially young voters, sive sectors of the youth voting bloc. Instead, Republican legislators found a convenient excuse to suppress one of the fastest rising liberal-voting demographics in the nation by framing facilitated voter access as an unwarranted advantage. Student voter suppression can and increasingly does continue to take place in practice, even when not encoded by law. In Fairfax County, Virginia, officials rejected 171 voter registration applications of George Mason University students just weeks before the November 5th elections for invalid residen

tial addresses. The county voting officials claimed that listing campus mailbox numbers and a general university address prevented the verification of voter eligibility. The man responsible for rejecting these applications, registrar Gary Scott, has received particular backlash by civil rights groups for his decision to send “notice of rejection” letters to the students, a violation of procedure under Virginia election law. Rather, Virginia election law requires that the registrar send a request for information on grounds of insufficient address information. Failure on the part of students to re-register in time for the November 5th elections after receiving Scott’s notices would have equated to voter ineligibility in one of the nation’s most pivotal local elections of the year. Republican incumbents defended a narrow majority of 51 to 48 in the Virginia House of Delegates and 20 to 19 in the Senate, with one vacancy in each chamber. While Democrats may have ultimately succeeded in flipping both legislatures, Scott’s actions again mark a thinly-veiled attempt by government officials to suppress student voter turnout under the guise of procedure.

These scare tactics and red tape amount to de facto student disenfranchisement. Such disenfranchisement is only exacerbated by false claims from President Trump that registering in two states constitutes voter fraud. On the contrary, merely registering in multiple states is not a crime; only voting twice constitutes a criminal offense. Difficulty accessing proper documentation, inaccessibility of polling sites, and convoluted procedure regarding early and absentee voting further fortify suppression of the youth vote.

Fortunately, groups across the country are taking these voter suppression laws to court. Alongside students, the League of Women Voters of Florida and the Andrew Goodman Foundation are currently challenging Florida package SB 7066. While the Texas Democratic party fights HB 1888, members of the D.C.- based Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law have filed a suit against the rejection notices received by 171 George Mason University students.

Granted, certain politicians may find it convenient to stand idle in the face of disenfranchisement if it is conducive to their partisan objectives. The temptation has become all too attractive in our current political climate. But as the 2020 election fast approaches and polarization continues to shake Americans’ faith in their democratic institutions, securing full and fair elections has never been more important. ☐

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