Can't Protect Itself
American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, News Release
September 30, 2008
ACLU Tells Radford Registrar to Stop Sending Misleading Requests to Students Who Apply to Register to Vote in Local Elections
Radford University students whose applications are rejected are urged to contact the ACLU of Virginia for legal assistance
Richmond, VA -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia yesterday emailed a letter to the General Registrar for the City of Radford asking that he cease sending misleading postcards to Radford University college students who are attempting to register to vote using their dormitory as their home address. The postcard, sent after the student’s application has been filed with the registrar, states that the application cannot be processed until a “home address” is provided to the registrar.
“This can only be construed as an attempt to dissuade students from registering to vote in Radford, or a ploy to trick them into providing contradictory information that could stall the registration process past the deadline,” said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis.
“Nearly everyone, except members of the Virginia General Assembly, agrees that Virginia’s law on where one registers to vote is confusing,” added Willis. “But that’s no excuse for registrars to deliberately mislead students who are trying to participate in the electoral process.”
The ACLU of Virginia is prepared to assist any student whose voter registration application is rejected because they attempted to register to vote where they attend school. Virginia law requires a person to vote where they have an abode (that is, where they sleep) and where they are domiciled (a place they intend to stay indefinitely). With more than one abode and no plans to remain in any one place indefinitely, it is not always clear whether college students should register to vote in their hometowns or where they attend school.
But the section of the State Board of Elections’ website pertaining to student registrations says: “ A person’s domicile is essentially a matter of subjective intent known only to that person.” Until a few weeks ago, when it was abruptly changed, the website contained the following, more emphatic, message to students: “You are the one to determine and declare the city, county and state in which you claim your legal residence.”
“Most people have one obvious primary address, and that’s where they register,” added Willis. “But college students, almost all of whom live in more than one place during the course of the year, must decide which address is their primary one. For many, it’s where they attend school—the place they call home for nine months out of the year. Legally, those students have a right to register where they attend college.”
“State law says registrars are supposed to “encourage” voters to register,” said Willis. “Registrars should be helping students decide where they should register to vote, not placing obstacles in their way that may discourage them from participating in our democratic form of government.”
The ACLU’s letter to the Radford registrar follows a recently reported incident in Montgomery County where the registrar told college students that their parents may no longer be able to claim them as dependants for tax purposes or that they may lose scholarships if they declare a separate college address for voting purposes.
The Lynchburg Commissioner of Revenue recently warned students not to register locally, saying he would check to see it students’ cars were registered in Lynchburg and fine those who had failed to do so. The remarks came in the wake of attempts by Jerry Falwell, Jr. to encourage Liberty University students to vote in local elections.
In 2000, the ACLU criticized the Fredericksburg registrar for refusing to allow students with dormitory addresses to register for local elections. The registrar later agreed not to automatically reject applications from students living on campus. In 2004, the ACLU provided legal representation to four William and Mary students whose applications to register in local elections had been rejected.
Copies of the ACLU’s correspondence with the Radford registrar are available below.
Contact: Kent Willis (office) 804/ 644-8022
Below is the recent correspondence, in chronological order, between ACLU of Virginia Legal Director Rebecca Glenberg and Radford General Registrar Tracy Howard
- 9/29/08: email from Glenberg to Howard
- 9/30/08: Howard’s response to Glenberg
- 9/30/08 :Glenberg’s response to Howard
- Text of postcard Howard is sending to students
September 29, 2008
Via E-mail
Tracy Howard
106 A Arlington Avenue
Radford, Virginia
radfordelections@jetbroadband.com
Dear Mr. Howard:
It has come to our attention that Radford University students who register to vote using dormitory addresses are subjected to extra scrutiny by your office. We ask that you cease such discriminatory treatment.
A September 10, 2008 Roanoke Times article stated that you planned to “make calls to students using dorm addresses with queries about whether they qualify for voter registration in Radford.” More recently, students have told us that you have sent postcards such applicants indicating that their registration cannot be processed until they provide their “home address.”
A dormitory address is a perfectly valid residential address for voter registration purposes. Students typically spend more than half of the year at their campus residence. They are likely to be affected by governmental affairs in the place where they attend school, much more so than the place where their parents live, or where they might spend two or three months in the summer. And many students have no intention of returning to their parents’ place of residence when they complete school.
Federal courts have consistently held that it is unconstitutional to discriminate against students who wish to register in the locality where they attend school. In Symm v. United States, 439 U.S. 1105 (1979), the Supreme Court affirmed a lower court’s ruling that invalidated a registrar’s practice of refusing to register college students unless they were natives of the county or had been promised a job there after graduation. Other courts have likewise held that special registration requirements may not be imposed on students. See, e.g., Bright v. Baesler, 336 F. Supp. 527 (E.D. Ky. 1971); Shivelhood v. Davis, 336 F. Supp. 1111 (D. Vt. 1971); Slone v. Smith, 351 F. Supp. 1299 (M.D. Penn. 1972); Wilkins v. Bentley , 189 N.W.2d 423 ( Mich. 1971). Your practice of subjecting students who live in dormitories to extra questioning is inconsistent with these precedents.
Accordingly, please provide us with immediate written assurances that you will cease any telephone calls or postcards demanding additional information from students who live in dormitories, and that you will instead treat them like any other voters who supply a valid local address.
Sincerely,
Rebecca K. Glenberg
Legal Director
Ms. Glenberg,
In response to your inquiry of 9-29-2008.
I agree that a Dorm address MAY be the domicile of an individual. We allow registration in dorms when the law in Virginia has been met.
Law states that an address cannot become a domicile until the previous domicile has been abandoned.
It is my belief that on occasion an individual has the intent to create a domicile by the abandonment of the previous domicile, but the act of applying to register to vote has been taken on by third party groups who have at best simply misinformed on-campus individuals and at worst lied to them to persuade the applicant to “sign up to vote”.
We know that on-campus individuals have been told that “Absentees do not count.” That, “law requires them to register with a dorm address.” When at school, and my personal favorite, “You are still a resident of Pennsylvania, even If you register in Radford.”
It is also my firm belief that by contacting these applicants, many of whom I believe have signed under coercive false pretenses, and helping them understand Virginia law I have allowed their first voting experience to be a more positive one.
We have learned of applications being changed AFTER the applicants signature was applied. We have evidence but no proof that third party groups are filling out dorm room applications PRIOR to the individual being asked to register to vote. YES applications filled out with an applicant’s information before the applicant is approached in his or her residence hall.
Because of these illegal efforts;
I will continue to contact individuals who apply with non-traditional or non-streeted addresses (not only students).
I will continue to apply Virginia law as it is written.
I will not disregard the domiciliary half of the residency law.
Every Individual Citizen has the right to vote.
No individual has the right to register to vote in a community based upon convenience, false information or lies.
Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of these circumstances.
Tracy D. Howard,
General Registrar of Voters for the City of Radford VA.
September 30, 2008
Via E-mail
Tracy Howard
106 A Arlington Avenue
Radford, Virginia
radfordelections@jetbroadband.com
Dear Mr. Howard:
Thank you for your response to my letter of yesterday. I am glad to hear that you consider students with dormitory addresses to be qualified voters, and I understand your concern that students may be misinformed by voter registration groups. However, your response to this concern does unlawfully discriminate against students.
The appropriate response to potential misinformation by voter registration activists is to educate the activists and potential voters, not to apply a presumption of ineligibility against students with dorm addresses until they supply additional information.
The postcard that you have sent to students (a copy of which is attached for your reference) is at best uninformative, and at worst misleading. It does not explain what a domicile is, nor does it explain that students may determine for themselves where to declare their residence. Instead, it tells students that a decision cannot be made on their application until they provide a “home address,” even though they have, in fact, provided a home address – their dorm – on their original application. In the absence of any explanation, some students undoubtedly take this to mean that you want their parents’ address, even if it is their intent, as expressed on their application, to declare Radford as their domicile and register to vote there.
As explained in my prior letter, singling out students for extra questioning on their applications violates their constitutional rights under the legal precedents I’ve cited. We continue to request that you cease this practice immediately.
Sincerely,
Rebecca K. Glenberg
Legal Director
[Radford registrar Postcard, text]
Dear Applicant,
This notification is to inform you of receipt of a Virginia Voter Registration Application. The following information is needed before a final decision can be made concerning you application. Thanks you for your help.
Please provide the address you consider you home address. This cannot be a Post Office Box.
Please provide your signature__________________________________
Please provide today’s date___________________________________
Return this card in TEN DAYS to:
Voter registration, 106 Arlington Ave, Radford V 24141
Questions: 540-731-3639
References: Art II, Section 1. Qualifications of Voters. Constitution of Virginia
Section 24.2-101 (residence) Code of Virginia