Federal Judge Rules for Students in Lawsuit Stemming From Rejected Voter Applications

> When students turn 18, they have earned the right to vote
Maybe in national elections, but students who move onto a campus that is located within a city’s municipal boundaries should not be allowed to vote on local issues, like property taxes, parcel taxes, or local government agencies–like City Councils and School Board Trustees.

In your view should people who rent (instead of own) be permitted to vote on property or parcel taxes?

The key issue here is the definition of “residency”.  This is not defined at the Federal level, and probably is not all that well defined at most local levels.  This issue pops up now and again when dealing with “homeless people” (persons of no fixed abode).  Are they “residents” of a town because they sleep under a bridge in that town, or are they “transients”, likely to be somewhere else tomorrow? 

And should these folks be allowed to vote in broad-based property tax elections because they happen to be in a town having an election today?  Certainly people who pay thousands of dollars a year in property taxes probably are not too thrilled to have these folks showing up—claiming to be “residents” and wanting to join in
the election.

As to students who happen to be living on a campus that happens to be within the municipal boundaries of a town—so what?  Students don’t own property (on the campus), they don’t live on campus all the live-long-year, they don’t pay property taxes, they are not subject to jury duty (because they are students), they are
generally poorly educated in most matters having to do with government, and therefore are not likely to have any understanding of local issues.

To make matters worse, most students have no idea what American government is all about:

American Students Fail History and Government Tests:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/33607463

There are other issues that involve “town and gown” relationships that suggest that students (who might well be declared as “dependents” by their parents for IRS purposes, and insurance purposes) should vote absentee ballot in their own home towns until they actually leave school.. and they happen to stay in the town where the school is, actually declare that as their primary residence, by renting, or buying property.

The idea that students could create “voting blocks” and become a disruptive force in a town’s politics, is probably a sufficient reason to insure that students can not declare their dorm room as a “primary residence”.  It would not be hard for municipalities to begin to “protect themselves” by passing various taxes, or restrictive behavior ordinances, against schools where this situation developed.. and  that tend to poison the relationship between the school and the town.

So .. best to let the students study, and the town go about its business—without having to deal with any possible undesirable influence from  the young people who stand only a 50% chance of graduating.

If you’re arguing that students who live off-campus are more-or-less residents, then I don’t have any arguments—other than I believe that the voting age should be moved to 25 years of age.  It was a terrible mistake to move it to 18, and little good has come of the decision to do so.

The rejected applications are yet another instance of the most coordinated and determined effort to create legal barriers to voting, and for politically strategic purposes, that we have seen since the Civil Rights movement. And it gets carried forward with the support of reasonable-sounding propositions — “renters should not vote on property taxes.” In THIS college town, when property taxes go up on landlords, rents go up for renters. OF COURSE renters pay property taxes.

I don’t know about the San Francisco issue but I somehow doubt it.  Everywhere renters do pay property taxes.  It’s part of their rent.  A landlord takes that into account when setting up rents and often includes a cushion for estimated future propety tax increases.  When property taxes go up, so do rents.  I suspect you’re neither a landlord nor are or have ever been a renter, otherwise you’d be acutely aware of this.

> Paul Revere warned the British ..

The following snippet from an (unfortunately) archived article in the Boston
Herald supports Sarah Palin’s version of events–

http://bostonherald.com/news/us_politics/view.bg?articleid=1343353

A Boston University history professor told the Herald that Revere did indeed warn the British as well as the Americans earlier in his ride:

Boston University history professor Brendan McConville said,

“Basically when Paul Revere was stopped by the British, he did say to them,
‘Look, there is a mobilization going on that you’ll be confronting,’ and the
British are aware as they’re marching down the countryside, they hear church
bells ringing — she was right about that — and warning shots being fired.
That’s accurate.”

Maybe she could have not bothered to share this bit of obscure Paul Revere trivia, as it’s clear few people in the US knew what Revere said, once he was captured.  (I don’t remember that it was reported that he was captured in my public history course, but it seems he was.)

> Founding Fathers abolished slavery ..

While there was a lot of discussion by the FFs about ending slavery in the new country they were creating, it turns out that they outlawed the Slave Trade, not slavery itself.  Most public history courses don’t deal with these sorts of details very well (until the graduate level).

> “slave families in the US were more stable than black families today”

Given the high level of welfare dependence, and the high level of out-of-wedlock births (as high as 65% in recent years), it would be interesting to see a really good, neutral study on this topic.

> “Why is there a North and a South Korea”?

Not certain what (or whom) you are making reference too, but having served as a company commander in the US Army in South Korea, I believe that it would be fair to say that the courage of the US people, as evidenced by their elected officials decided to commit the lives of about 37,000 young men, and billions of dollars, to fight the Communist North Korean government’s attempt to overthrow the South Korean government—with the goal of unifying the whole country under the murderous oligarchy of the Communist Party.  Notice—a failure of resolve on the part of the US government (and people) ended up with there not being a North Vietnam, and a South Vietnam–just a single country unified under a Communist dictatorship.

(Or were making reference to the original partition after WWII?)

Not exactly sure what your point is .. but it might be a good time to suggest that perhaps a “literacy test” might be a good idea for elected officials.  As to my point, how many 18 year olds could answer these questions?  Personally, I doubt that few could—so, how many would be able to make good decisions about whether the US should go to war to defend South Korea, Japan, or Taiwan, against a possible military incursion by the PLA (People’s Liberation Army).

> As for historical knowledge, have you forgotten that the right to
> vote at 18 came about because of the draft

No .. as I was drafted in 1969. I spent the next three years proudly serving my country.

However, the reason for the shift to 18 year old voting was far more complicated than “the draft”.  The Democrats, opposed to stopping communism in South East Asia by that time, believed that they could increase the number of democratic votes to somehow “end the war” by electing more democrats with the goal of doing “whatever” to bring the conflict to an end.

By the way, the shallowness of your answer suggests that you are unaware that about 2/3rds of the inductees of the Army have been drafted in every major war that the US has fought?  As a draftee, I found that the “student movement” in the late 1960s, early 1970s, was very misguided, and that few of their claims made about “the Military” turned out to be more false than not. I
came to believe, over time, that the social structure of the Military is far “fairer”
than that in civilian society.

As I posted earlier—this shift to 18 has never provided the democratic process much in terms of the promises made by those promoting this change.  I still stand by my belief that 25 is time to allow people to vote.

> I’m 69, so I guess you think I’m too young to vote?

No .. I said 25 years was my desired age.  However, at 69, you should have better reading skills than you are demonstrating.

>  the meaning of your argument comes from the context in
> which it is made.  The right to vote is under attack by a thousand cuts

Frankly, you lost me with your  “conspiratorial” claims about this, that, and
the other.  There is some concern about voting fraud, which you don’t mention in your ramblings. Certainly people who believe in the longevity of our current Republic would be concerned about setting the barriers to illegal voting as high as possible. Suggestions that this is an attack on “voting rights” doesn’t make much sense, unless you believe than anyone, and everyone, should vote (early and often).  I certainly believe that picture IDs are a necessity.

Oh, by the way, there are slow movements towards voting by permanent absentee ballots here in California, and we are slowly getting around to talking about on-line voting.  It’s difficult to fathom people claiming that
shifting to, say, a two-four week voting “window”, where people can vote on-line, is an attach on their voting rights.  But certainly the attacks on voting machines proves that there a “loonies” everywhere.

Some years back, there was talk in the California Legislature about shifting the voting age down to 14.  That “movement” didn’t really go very far, but it certainly was frightening that there were people within the Legislature that would even suggest such stupidity.

Voting is important—that’s why we have worked hard over the
years to increase the scope of those afforded the “right”.  Unfortunately, there has not been much in the way of “obligations” added to the equation, so that “mobocracy” doesn’t become the norm.