Maine: ACLU calls on secretary of state to apologize to students | Bangor Daily News

The ACLU of Maine and two national groups are calling on the secretary of state to apologize to nearly 200 Maine university students for telling them they needed to either get a Maine driver’s license and register their vehicles in Maine or relinquish their right to vote here.

In a five-page letter sent to Secretary of State Charles Summers on Monday, the Maine chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU Voting Rights Project, and Demos, a national policy and advocacy organization, said Summers targeted the students and sent them a letter the groups called “threatening” and “likely to deter them (the students) from exercising their voting rights.”

A spokesman for the ACLU of Maine said there is no connection between the right to vote and registering a car or getting a driver’s license, and the Secretary of State’s Office should not have tied them together.

Wisconsin: Universities waiting for answers on ID cards | LaCrosse Tribune

Local universities have found thrifty ways to make student IDs mesh with looming requirements at the polls, but their plans rest on a state board’s interpretation of the new voter ID law. Student IDs at Viterbo University and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse will not be accepted as valid forms of photo ID when the law takes effect next year.

All student IDs will need a signature and posted issuance and expiration dates with a two-year life span to be acceptable for voting. UW-L officials plan to keep existing student IDs and issue an extra voting card to students upon request.

“We’re only going to provide these to students that need them and request them,” said Larry Ringgenberg, UW-L director of university centers. “Typically, we’re not seeing this as a huge population of our students.”

Voting Blogs: Student Voting: An Opportunity, Not a Problem | Doug Chapin/PEEA

As the 2012 election approaches, voting by students is once again a source of controversy and concern – especially in Maine, where students have found themselves caught in the middle of the dispute over repealing the state’s Election Day registration law.

To be sure, it’s partly a political battle. Students can play a pivotal role in elections, and so where they vote matters. As state legislatures debate voter identification, residency requirements, same-day registration and even voting by mail, students are a popular target.

The real focus, however, should be the impact of America’s growing population mobility on the nation’s election system. The Census Bureau estimates that one in six Americans–including but not limited to students–moves each year. The average American moves eleven times in a lifetime.

Maine: State tells students: Register your car in Maine or don’t vote here | Sun Journal

Secretary of State Charles Summers has sent a letter to about 200 of the Maine university students cleared in a recent voter fraud investigation, advising them to either get a Maine driver’s license and register their vehicles in Maine or relinquish their right to vote here.

The one-page letter cites Maine election law, which requires that voters be Maine residents, and state motor vehicle laws, which require that new residents who drive get a Maine driver’s licence and register their vehicles here. In the letter, Summers requests that students “take appropriate action to comply with our motor vehicle laws within the next 30 days.” If students decide they aren’t residents after all, he asks them to fill out the enclosed form to cancel their Maine voter registration.

Summers said he sent the letters because he’s responsible for both election and motor vehicle laws as secretary of state, and he felt he had to follow-up on the approximately 200 people who said they lived here but who were not listed in the state’s motor vehicle database. “I’m made aware that there are people who may not be in compliance like everybody else in the state of Maine — that’s why I sent it out,” he said. But others say the letter was an attempt to intimidate the students and manipulate them into giving up their right to vote here.

Voting Blogs: College Students and Voter Fraud: Charlie Webster’s Maine Problem | State of Elections

Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster is “on a mission to make Maine a better place.” The trouble is, the “better place” he envisions lies on the other side of what may be an insurmountable controversy.

Since famously brandishing a list of 206 alleged voter frauds—all college students—a few weeks ago, Webster has been branded the leader of a witch hunt. The chairman maintains that Maine law is very clear that residency must be established before voting. This is true, but Webster’s opponents on this issue are quick to point out that doing so is almost trivially easy, and certainly not beyond students’ ability. Webster insists on implementing several harsher residency requirements, such as paying income taxes.

He intends to prevent students attending schools away from their hometowns from voting in communities where their interests may run counter to the residents’. At the center of this issue is Maine’s Election Day registration law, which was repealed in June but may be on its way back from the grave. Webster contends that students—especially out-of-state students—who register and vote on their Maine campuses on a day-of basis may be committing fraud. Few such students think to notify their original place of registration of their new voting locale, and many are registered in two places at once. However, dual registration alone is not voter fraud, and Webster’s critics claim that Maine has virtually no issues with voter fraud, that voting machines are designed to protect against this issue, and that voter registries are routinely updated to account for changes of address.

Wisconsin: On Campus: Tech college officials fight voter ID ruling | madison.com

Leaders in the Wisconsin Technical College System are fighting a ruling that student IDs issued by the state’s 16 technical colleges cannot be used to vote. Technical college officials are formally requesting that the Government Accountability Board reconsider its interpretation of a new voter ID law at its next meeting on Nov. 9.

The new law will take effect next year and requires residents to show a photo ID to vote. The board, which oversees elections in Wisconsin, clarified at a meeting earlier this month that University of Wisconsin System IDs could be used for voting – if they include all the required information – but technical college IDs could not.

In an email last week, Paul Gabriel, executive director of the Wisconsin Technical College System District Boards Association, put out a call to college leaders, staff, students and stakeholders to advocate for acceptance of technical college IDs.

Editorials: Overheated or reheated? Fraud claims leave us cold | Bill Nemitz:/The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

In a perfect world, Secretary of State Charlie Summers’ press conference on Wednesday would have produced one of two story lines.

The first: Summers stuns the state with clear evidence of widespread fraud by voters who illegally registered and cast ballots in Maine on past Election Days.

The second: Summers, conceding that his two-month search for same-day registration fraud has come up dry, apologizes to Maine citizens for wasting their tax dollars on a wild goose chase.

But this, as we’re all painfully aware, is not a perfect world. So here we are once again, stuck with story line three: Summers, unable to back up the Maine Republican Party’s claims that same-day voter registration has suddenly become a threat to our democracy, sets off a smoke bomb and screams, “Fire!”

Or, as the secretary himself put it, “Essentially we’re at the point where the system is very overheated.” Oh really? Let’s go to the numbers.

Maine: Secretary of state to release voter fraud findings | Bangor Daily News

Maine Secretary of State Charlie Summers on Wednesday will announce the findings of a joint investigation into what he called the “questionable voter activity” of college students, and also whether non-citizens have successfully registered to vote. Summers launched his investigation in late July, a couple days after he was presented with information by Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster.

Webster suggested that 206 out-of-state students attending public Maine universities should be questioned and investigated for possible voter fraud. Specifically, the state GOP chairman wanted to know whether those students had established residency in Maine or whether they voted twice — in Maine and in their home state.

In the past, courts have ruled that students can consider a college dormitory their primary residence, which would allow them to vote in that community even if they are not full-time Maine residents.

Wisconsin: Not all student IDs allowed in Voter ID Law | WQOW TV

There’s a solution in place to help address a concern of the new Voter ID Law.  To meet requirements of the new law, many universities have been worried they’d have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to update all student IDs.

Earlier this week, a solution was approved.  Universities will be able to issue students a sticker to place on their ID.  “They approached us about the idea of having special stickers that universities would issue that would bear the university’s logo and have a signature and the issuance and expiration dates,” says Reid Magney, Government Accountability Board spokesman.

However, not all student IDs work under the new law.  IDs issued to students at technical colleges are not valid.

Texas: Young Voters challenge Voter ID law | Chron.com

The Young Voters Education Fund has joined in an objection to Texas’ Voter ID law, which the Justice Department is reviewing to make sure it does not harm minority voters.

“Texas’s proposed photo ID measure, which does not permit the use of a government-issued student identification card as an acceptable form of identification at the polls, would disfranchise students who only possess student identification,” said Christina Sanders,  State Director for the Texas League of Young Voters Education Fund.

Critics said this applies especially for many African-American students at Prairie View A&M University, a historically black university located in Waller County, who have been the target of multiple efforts to deny their votes over the years. The League of Young Voters Education Fund collected statements from dozens of students at Prairie View confirming that the proposed photo ID law will disfranchise them.

Wisconsin: Stickers may make college IDs usable under state voter ID law | JSOnline

The Government Accountability Board, which runs state elections, unanimously adopted a policy Monday that said schools could put stickers on existing IDs to include the information needed to make the IDs compliant with the voter ID law. That could save public and private schools money by not having to completely overhaul their IDs.

However, the board discussion highlighted the difficulties students may find in using their student IDs to vote – sticker or not. For one thing, voters who present a proper student ID would still have to show proof they were currently enrolled at the school. Those using other types of IDs, such as Wisconsin driver’s licenses, would not have to prove they were enrolled at the school.

A new law that goes into effect next year will require voters to show photo IDs at the polls and allow only very limited types of student IDs from Wisconsin institutions. Few if any of those schools currently issue IDs that comply with the law, which says the IDs must expire within two years of being issued, include the expiration date and include a signature. The sticker could help meet those requirements. Nevertheless, only IDs from certain types of institutions would be accepted. IDs issued by technical colleges, for example, are not valid for voting.

Maine: GOP chair questions 19 voter registrations in 2004; probe reveals displaced medical students voted legally | Sun Journal

In the latest twist in the debate over same-day voter registration, the chairman of the Maine Republican Party on Friday questioned why 19 individuals staying in a South Portland hotel were allowed to register to vote on Election Day in 2004. As it turns it out, the individuals were American college students, who appear to have registered and voted legally.

Questioned by the Sun Journal, Jason Bartlett, general manager of the Holiday Inn Express on Sable Oaks Drive, said the students had been “permanent guests” at the hotel because their medical school on Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean had been destroyed by Hurricane Ivan.

The 19 students, who came from states across the country, were among 383 students enrolled at St. Matthew’s University School of Medicine. All were displaced by the storm. According to Bartlett, the students were sent to Maine to continue their studies while their school was repaired. St. Joseph’s College in Standish assisted in the relocation program, according to a college spokesperson. The relocation was the subject of a Press Herald story published in September 2004.

Maine: GOP chair: College students sully elections – UM student appearing on list of 206: ‘I’m not welcome here’ | The Maine Campus

Despite being labeled a witch-hunt by some and provoking claims that students’ voting rights are under attack, more than 200 college students are being investigated by the Maine Department of the Secretary of State following allegations of voter fraud. The active investigation, which involves the Office of the Maine Attorney General, stems from allegations made in July by Charlie Webster, chairman of the Maine Republican Party, that 206 out-of-state students violated Maine election laws and committed “deliberate voter fraud” by registering to vote in two places.

Over the summer, Webster requested the names of out-of-state students at the University of Maine, the University of Maine at Farmington, the University of Maine at Machias and the University of Southern Maine’s campus in Gorham. He then compiled a list that was released publicly with the first initial, hometown and birth date of those he claims were registered to vote both in their hometowns and in the towns that house their schools. Webster contends that this is a clear violation of Maine election law.

The Maine Campus identified seven of the 206 students on the list who attend UMaine. Two were willing to discuss the issue at length. The others feared they would be further implicated in the controversy.

Maine: GOP chairman says if students want to vote, they should pay taxes | Bangor Daily News

Charlie Webster sounds a lot like LeRoy Symm. Symm, the registrar of voters in Waller County, Texas, had a special questionnaire he used for college students. It included questions such as: Do you own property in the county? Where did you attend church? What are your job plans?

If Symm and his deputies knew a voter by name and face, they were simply registered. College students had to pass Symm’s test. The U.S. Supreme Court in 1979 said this violated the Constitution, thereby establishing the practice of allowing college students to list their dormitory as their residence for the purposes of voting.

Three decades later, the ruling has not deterred Webster, the Maine Republican Party chairman, who weeks ago brandished a list of more than 200 college students he said likely engaged in voter fraud.

Wisconsin: Colleges Make Changes on Student IDs To Comply With New Law | WISC Madison

College campuses in Wisconsin are now trying to make changes to student IDs for students to be able to use them to vote.

A last-minute change to the law permitted student IDs to be used at the polls, but some schools will have to make big changes for them to comply with the law requirements. According to the Voter ID law, student identification can be used at the polls if they have a photo, a signature and expire in two years. Students at University of Wisconsin-Platteville migh see these changes this fall. Officials said that they’ve remade the identification cards.

New Hampshire: Democrats ask ‘What did voting officials know of speaker’s son’ | NashuaTelegraph.com

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chairman Ray Buckley filed a Right-to-Know Law request to learn if state election officials knew House Speaker William O’Brien’s son was simultaneously registered to vote in Mont Vernon and Maine where he attended college.

“Hopefully that will help determine what exactly took place and clear up any confusion,” Buckley said Thursday. A Mont Vernon resident filed a complaint with Attorney General Michael Delaney’s office earlier this week alleging O’Brien’s wife and other election officials in that town did not follow procedures to prevent her son, Brendan, from being registered to vote in both states.

New Hampshire: Attorney General’s office investigating Mont Vernon voter records | NEWS06

The Attorney General’s Office has been asked to investigate the handling of voter records kept in Mont Vernon, hometown of Speaker of the House William O’Brien. Town resident Joyce Cardoza filed a complaint this week after reading news reports that O’Brien’s son Brendan was registered to vote in both his hometown and in Lewiston, Maine, where he attended college and ran for public office in 2009.

Cardoza, a registered Democrat, noted that Speaker O’Brien’s wife Roxanne is one of three supervisors of the checklist who handle voter registration matters. State law requires local election officials to take specific steps to notify officials in a voter’s previous town of a change in registration.

In this case, the registration form young O’Brien filled out when he voted in Mont Vernon in November 2010 never made it to Lewiston. State law requires supervisors of the checklist to send a copy of the registration form to a voter’s previous town if it lies within New England.

Maine: Election Day registration supporters battle opponents’ stagecraft | Sun Journal

Supporters of a people’s veto campaign to restore Election Day voter registration were obviously concerned when Secretary of State Charlie Summers announced last Wednesday that he was holding a news conference to discuss what his office described as “preliminary findings regarding voter fraud allegations.”

The group’s anxiety was partially attributable to fears that Summers may have discovered voting impropriety within Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster’s mysterious — some say dubious — list of 206 out-of-state college students. But more worrisome to the coalition was the scene that unfolded the next day in Summers’ office.

A throng of television cameras, radio and print reporters awaited his remarks. Supporters of same-day voter registration knew that visuals of Summers in his office would appear on that night’s newscasts, that afternoon’s newspaper websites and in print the next day.

Editorials: Turning away college students in Maine | Bangor Daily News

Here’s a great economic development strategy for the oldest state in the nation — treat college-educated young people as pariahs.

Rather than encourage these people to begin to put down roots and get involved in the local community, ensure that you are as unwelcoming as possible. Accuse them of fraud. Blame them when local elections didn’t go the way you wanted. Put up barriers making it harder for them to vote locally.

Earlier this week, Charlie Webster, head of the Maine Republican Party, held up a list he said showed 206 college students from other states have illegally voted in Maine.

Maine: Same Day Voter Registration and Charlie Webster’s Infinite Wisdom | Price on Politics

I have been avoiding this topic for the past couple of weeks because it has received plenty of coverage, but given GOP Chairman Charlie Webster’s latest actions, it was time for a college student’s take on the matter. For the past four years I have been a registered Republican in a college town and as frustrating as it often can be to go up against the liberal leanings of the area, restricting voting access is wrong and will not change the outcome of elections.

I am from Maine and have voted since I was 18, and never once was it in my hometown. I follow the local politics of the area I reside in and am most informed about the issues of that area. While I am not one of the students Webster has decided to target, I still take issue with his accusations. I’d also be curious to know where LePage’s children voted during their time (paying in state tuition?) attending college in Florida. If we are heading down this road, why not look at Maine citizens voting in other states while attending school. Does this concern Webster? No, because to him they represent one less liberal voting in a Maine election.

Maine: State GOP Chair: Students Who Vote And Pay Out-Of-State Tuition Are Committing Voter Fraud | TPM

Maine Republican Party Chairman Charlie Webster is claiming that college students who pay out-of-state tuition rates and vote in state are committing voter fraud. At a press conference at the Maine State House, Webster gave the media a list of over 200 students — their names redacted — who paid out-of-state tuition rates but were registered to vote in the state.

Webster said he came up with the list because of opposition from voter rights groups to a law passed by the Republican-led legislature in June which banned voter registration on Election Day. A coalition of groups have launched a petition drive to overturn the law.

One problem. The University of Maine only allows individuals who previously lived in Maine — those who aren’t just living into the state to attend school — to pay a discounted in-state tuition rate.

National: Youth Vote Faces Challenges With Voter ID Legislation | The Nation

Voter fraud is an “epidemic.” It abounds, stealing elections from rightful candidates and places losers into unearned elected office. Republican dominated statehouses across the country are “combating” this problem through strict voter ID legislation, where a government-issued photo identification is required in order to vote. Seven states have already enacted legislation requiring state-issued photo ID at the polls and many more are pending.

One of the states, Wisconsin, enacted what Milwaukee Common Council Alderwoman Milele Coggs accurately called “the most restrictive voter ID legislation in the country.” It requires photo IDs issued by the state or federal government and only allows a forgetful voter’s provisional ballot to count if they return within three days with a proper ID.

College students are some of the unintended—or intended—citizens affected by the law. They broke for Barack Obama in 2008 by an astonishing 38 points and remained loyal to Democrats in 2010 by wide margins.

Florida: Seminole County elections chief says new law may hit high schools – deputizes principals to get around restrictions | Orlando Sentinel

Seminole County Elections Supervisor Michael Ertel says an election law cracking down on third-party voter registration groups may have the effect of making it harder for people to register at high schools.

So on Thursday, he’s getting around the potential problem by swearing in every high school principal in the county as “deputy” election supervisors.

The problem is this: Ertel says between 15 and 20 percent of high school students who register to vote don’t have either their driver’s license or Social Security numbers on them when they go in to fill out the registration form.

National: Students claim ID rules make it harder to rock the vote | Merimbula News Weekly

A series of laws and proposals popping up across the United States this year to strengthen voter identification requirements is part of an effort to discourage voting by students, who turned out in large numbers for Barack Obama in 2008, the head of a youth lobby group told a conference of young liberals on Thursday.

”Under the radar, there [is] a set of people trying to make it harder for students to vote,” said the president of Rock the Vote, Heather Smith, at the Campus Progress National Conference, just one day after Rhode Island announced a new voter identification law requiring photo IDs.

National: Bill Clinton: GOP War on Voting Is Most Determined Disenfranchisement Effort Since Jim Crow | ThinkProgress

Speaking yesterday at the annual Campus Progress convention, former President Bill Clinton called out the GOP’s state by state efforts to make it harder to vote— a war on voting designed almost entirely to reduce the number of Democrats who cast ballots:

I can’t help thinking, since we just celebrated the Fourth of July and we’re supposed to be a country dedicated to liberty, that one of the most pervasive political movements going on outside Washington today is the disciplined, passionate, determined effort of Republican governors and legislators to keep most of you from voting next time. There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the other Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today.

National: New study examines the impact of on-campus voter registration efforts on college student turnout | Election Updates

A paper was just published in PS: Political Science & Politics by Stacy G. Ulbig and Tamara Waggener, “Getting Registered and Getting to the Polls: The Impact of Voter Registration Strategy and Information Provision on Turnout of College Students.” Here is the study’s abstract:

Each election year, colleges and universities across the nation witness a plethora of on-campus voter registration activities. The results of these drives are most often assessed by tallying the number of voter registration cards collected. Little has been done, however, to more carefully investigate these results. As a first attempt to examine postdrive results more thoroughly, we ask two questions.

Editorials: Happy 26th Amendment Day! Enjoy It While It Lasts | Campus Progress

July 1, 1971 saw the 26th amendment, which reduced the minimum voting age from 21 to 18, and millions of college-age Americans were given the right to vote.

40 years later, lawmakers are attacking this Constitutional right by introducing so-called voter ID bills. These bills require voters to show specific types of photo identification at the polls, a requirement that 18 percent of young people in the United States currently do not meet.

Many laws also limit the use of student ID cards as acceptable forms of identification. The student activism that led to the passage of the 26th Amendment should inspire and direct student activism today to protect our rights.

Wisconsin: Some Recall Voters Might Get Turned Away | WUWM

In three weeks, some Milwaukee voters will cast ballots in a recall of state Sen. Alberta Darling of River Hills. Darling, five other Republicans and three Democratic Senators face recalls…either for their support or opposition to Gov. Walker’s collective bargaining bill. As WUWM’s Marti Mikkelson reports, a few people who go to the polls could find themselves unable to vote because of a new state law.

One provision in the new Voter ID law the Legislature and governor approved in May, requires voters to have lived in their ward for 28 days. That means anyone who moved into their voting wards after June 14 is out of luck. However, Milwaukee Election Commissioner Sue Edman does not expect there to be much outrage at the polling places on July 12.

Missouri: Missouri Governor Vetoes Controversial Voter ID Bill | Campus Progress

A major victory for voting rights was handed down on Friday when Missouri Governor Jay Nixon vetoed controversial voter ID legislation. The bill, which would have required a photo ID to vote, was heavily opposed by many state and national groups, including Campus Progress, who joined with over 40 other organizations in signing on to a letter that was sent to the Governor on Friday before he handed down his veto. In vetoing the legislation, Governor Nixon joins Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer and Mark Dayton of Minnesota who also struck down photo ID bills passed earlier this year in their states. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has more on Nixon’s justification for the veto:

“In a letter explaining his veto, Nixon said the photo ID requirement would have hurt senior citizens and people with disabilities who are qualified to vote but are less likely to have a drivers license or other government-issued photo ID. ‘Disenfranchising certain classes of persons is not acceptable,’ he said.”

Editorials: Voting: It’s (Apparently) Not for Everyone | Campus Progress- Campus Progress

Yesterday, Hardball and The Rachel Maddow Show ran segments highlighting the ongoing efforts by  several state legislatures to make it more difficult to vote, blasting lawmakers for disenfranchising younger and older citizens. As Campus Progress has been reporting, state legislatures in Maine, Wisconsin, and numerous other states are working towards passing or have already passed laws that require voters to have ID cards with them at the polls, and end same-day registration for voting.

Both Rachel Maddow and Hardball’s Chris Matthews expressed indignation at this trend. “The people who have the least trouble with the ID cards, the people who drove to the polling station, have an ID right in their pockets called their driver`s license and they are middle class people with enough money to own a car,” said Matthews. “And [if] they`re young enough to drive and old enough to have enough money to own a car, they are probably able to vote. It`s the younger person and older person who might be disenfranchised.”