Student voter registration

[Margo Schlanger]

I don't think I understand -- why WOULDN'T we draw inferences from a
summary affirmance?  It's not a denial of cert. (as Chief Justice
Rehnquist emphasized in dissent, in Symms) -- it's a ruling on the
merits.  

 

In addition, where you spend your summers hardly determines your
domicile, or there's be a lot of NYC psychiatrists with domiciles in
Cape Cod.  When I lived in New Haven, as a student, I registered to vote
in New Haven.  It was my community; I followed its politics, I payed
taxes in Connecticut, my car was registered there.  I could go on.
Fraud?  Throwing around accusations of fraud seems WAY overblown here
(not to mention wrong on the merits).  I might even say it's outrageous
(at least there's MY outrage).  And talking about "home states" assumes
the answer.   

 

Margo

 

___________________________________ 
Margo Schlanger
Visiting Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School 
Professor of Law & Director, Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse 
Washington University in St. Louis, School of Law
e-mail: mschlanger at wulaw.wustl.edu <mailto:mschlanger at wulaw.wustl.edu>  
web: http://schlanger.wustl.edu <http://schlanger.wustl.edu/>  

 

________________________________

From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu on behalf of Earl Maltz
Sent: Fri 10/31/2008 9:13 AM
To: conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu
Subject: Student voter registration

Many thanks to those who pointed me to the summary affirmance in the
Symms case, which is apparently the decision on which the mainstream
media is relying in asserting that students have a constitutional
right to vote wherever they attend college.  Even to the extent that
one can draw any inferences from a summary affirmance, it is clear
that the decision does not establish any such rule.

Here's the larger point.  While the students themselves don't know
any better, it seems to me that those who are encouraging students at
private colleges like Kenyon (the subject of the Time magazine piece)
to register and vote in Ohio (a battleground state) rather than their
home states are chargeable with knowledge of the law, and thus are
engaged in systematic voting fraud (most Kenyon students are from out
of state, and many return home each summer, so cannot possibly be
domiciliaries of Ohio).  Where's the outrage?

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