Voting Barriers
Restrictive Voter ID Laws
Approximately 19% of young voters report that they do not possess up to date government issued photo identification. The substitutions for photo ID are not easily obtainable, especially under circumstances where the college or university pays utility and phone bills for students living in dormitories.
Most photo identification laws are passed under the guise of preventing voter impersonation fraud, which studies indicate is virtually non-existent. Therefore, the primary effect of restrictive photo identification laws is the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters, many of whom tend to be young people.
Residency and Domicile Questions
Too frequently, students across the country are told that dormitory addresses do not satisfy residency requirements. Students have a choice to vote using their parents’ address or their school address. Election officials cannot apply a different residency standard to students simply because they are students. When election officials complicate the voting process by requiring additional information of students, they discourage, rather than encourage, civic participation among our generation.
Long Lines
In the past, poor allocation of Election Day resources, such as ballots, voting machines, and poll workers, has led to long voting lines for students. Specific examples include colleges and universities across Ohio in 2004—Kenyon College (10 hours), Oberlin College (5 hours), Denison University (4 hours), Bowling Green State University (3 hours). In 2008, the longest lines in the country occurred for students at Lincoln University in Philadelphia, where the wait exceeded 7 hours. SAVE believes a legislative standard, mandating a ratio of voting machines to registered voters, is a common sense solution to address the problem.
Misinformation Campaigns and Deceptive Practices
Given that young people are often first-time voters, we are particularly susceptible to intentionally misleading statements regarding their rights as voters. Misinformation campaigns represent the worst election tactics, as they intend to discourage people from voting with false threats of serious consequences. Deceptive flyers from anonymous sources are most common, although statements from local Board of Elections officials also occur. Claims range from the believable (that parents can no longer claim students as dependants on their taxes) to the absurd (that anyone with an outstanding parking ticket will be arrested when they vote). If you see, hear, or learn of any dubious claims, you should contact a reliable source, such as a school administrator or the state’s chief election official.