Yang: Silencing Students
By Lorelei Yang, Staff Columnist
Published on Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Last week, the New Hampshire legislature overrode Governor John Lynch’s veto on a bill requiring photo identification to vote in elections, thereby passing one of the most draconian voter ID laws in the United States. If the Department of Justice approves it, the new law, which is set to go into effect in September 2013, will suddenly make New Hampshire’s election process significantly less accessible to elderly, low-income and student voters who are least likely to have the specific forms of ID permissible.
Under the old law, election officials accepted a broad range of identification from voters, including U.S. passports, driver’s licenses, non-driver ID cards, military ID and student IDs, even if they were expired. Individual election officials were also permitted to accept other forms of photo identification on a discretionary basis, as long as the ID included the elector’s name and current address. Additionally, voters who lacked the proper identification but whose names were in the precinct register were allowed to cast provisional ballots after signing affidavits of identity.
The new voter ID law will radically change things: State agency, municipal and valid student IDs will be phased out, as will local election officials’ discretionary authority to recognize other valid photo IDs. When it goes into effect, the new law will allow only four forms of identification — a driver’s license, non-driver ID card from the Department of Motor Vehicles, a military ID or a U.S. passport — and only if they are not expired. Finally, while the new law still allows voters without identification to cast provisional ballots, it requires such voters to consent to having their pictures taken in addition to signing an affidavit of identity.
It takes no stretch of the imagination to see how this law might disproportionately affect certain segments of New Hampshire’s electorate. Low-income and elderly populations are less likely to drive and thus are significantly less likely to have valid driver’s licenses.
The cost of obtaining a non-driver ID, while nominal to those in the middle or upper class, may present itself as a frivolous and unnecessary expenditure to a family that is already struggling to make ends meet, particularly in today’s difficult economic climate. A relatively small portion of the population has military IDs, and according to CNN, a mere 30 percent of the U.S. population has a passport.
Many Dartmouth students — some of whom will inevitably lack the identification required under the stringent new ID laws — register to vote in New Hampshire, a contested swing state that also functions as a bellwether in presidential elections. As a significant part of Hanover’s electorate, we must be aware of the New Hampshire legislature’s deliberate machinations that complicate our ability to exercise our right to vote.
At this moment, there are two important things that we, as student voters in New Hampshire, can do to soften the blow of this law. First, it is imperative that we take immediate action to discourage the Department of Justice from approving the new law under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which authorizes the federal government to deny specific states, including New Hampshire, the right to change the qualifications for voting if a proposed law is proven to have a discriminatory purpose.
Given that low-income and student voters, who will be disproportionately affected by the new ID law, tend to vote Democratic, and that the currently Republican-held legislature is acutely aware of this fact, it seems clear that the new voter ID law is more about politicking than it is about guaranteeing voters’ constitutional rights to safe and fair elections.
And if the Department of Justice does allow this law to go into effect next fall, it is crucial for us to make sure that we have the proper identification to vote, and that those around us — our friends and the citizens of New Hampshire — have adequate information about the new law’s requirements.
If students are required to get a drivers license or a non-driver ID card, the nearest offices of the Division of Motor Vehicles is in North Haverhill at the Grafton County Courthouse (only open twice a month-2nd and 4th Fridays), or the 45-50 minutes to get to the Claremont location. Not exactly in range of Advance Transit, so, good luck finding a friend willing to drive you there and back during business hours.
Which is entirely the point. There has been no proven instances of massive voter fraud. The most prominent case of voter fraud in recent years was Republican Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White’s conviction on six felony counts of voter fraud, theft, and perjury. The most underreported instance of voter fraud wasn’t ACORN or some other nebulous Democratic scheme, but Mitt Romney voting in the 2010 Senate special election to replace Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts.
Romney owned no property in Massachusetts having sold his Belmont, MA home in 2009, did own a $12.5 million home in California and a $10 million home in New Hampshire, but to vote in the 2010 MA election, claimed to live in his son Tagg’s unfinished basement.
THAT was voter fraud. But that news story has been allowed to fade into the distance while conservatives continue to pretend that Democrats are out there stealing elections by allowing people to vote who shouldn’t be (when they really mean they are losing elections because we’re allowing students, the poor, and minorities to vote).
By Anon on Jul 10 | 8:32 am
Thank you for writing about this issue. The NH legislature has been trying to pass Photo ID bills in the past couple of years (ie. the years the Republicans swept the House in a nearly 3 to 1 majority). This is the first one to pass, and it will be frustrating for towns across the state to follow through on this new legislation. Not only does this bill restrict students' ability to vote, it will be costly for towns, who now need to invest in further training for officials to moderate and town clerks to check in voters at the polls. The new restrictions will inevitably not be publicized well enough, meaning longer lines and increased numbers of voters being turned away. The “live free or die” state needs to focus on protecting our freedoms, such as our right to vote, and not eliminating them!
By Morgan Matthews on Jul 10 | 12:12 pm
Funny how the state passing anything with the Democratic stranglehold it had until 2010 was just fine. Taxing, regulating, passing social agendas was all great. Dartmouth College students and any other college students shouldn’t be throwing their illegitimate muscle around in small NH towns anyway. How many Dartmouth students stay in New Hampshire after graduation? How many are residents? Voting for students is a convenient exercise of power. Students rarely have a job, live off campus, or do anything that could be remotely equated with being a New Hampshire resident, other than the College is located there. Student outrage on this issue is a joke. Having to produce photo ID is required for thousands of things that each of us does on a daily basis, the arguments against it are pathetic. “No proven instances of massive voter fraud” This combines the fact that there are tens of thousands of instances of voter fraud with the ever popular modifier “massive.” No instances of massive. What does that mean and why would anyone be against people voting who are qualified to vote unless they believe that freeloading non citizens would vote for more freeloading that they approve of? Follow the money. That’s what the freeloading left does. They follow the money of the people who make it and try to take or do take it. That’s what this article is about. it’s about taking other people’s money and depriving them of their freedom. And that IS an outrage.
By Anon on Jul 10 | 9:05 pm
^ Excellent comment, agree with anon completely.
But, to be fair, it was a well written article.
By Anonymous on Jul 12 | 2:32 am
Does anyone wonder why Lorelei would say that a voter ID card would be seen as a frivolous expense for a low income family? How many low income families members don’t have driver’s licenses? Why would she go to the trouble of telling that the fee wouldn’t be a problem for wealthy or middle class families but would be for low income people and then not tell just how much the fee is for the draconian NH voter ID card? Why wouldn’t she just say it’s $10? She doesn’t mention it because it ruins the whole woe is us and nasty are they…Pssst…Republicans, theme. When you are discussing an awful attack on the poor and “lower class” and you leave out the cost of the dreaded instrument of voting, you know exactly why you left it out, because you don’t want to tell anyone. Funny thing for an essayist to leave out a key fact. Nine paragraphs and where is the $10? Nowhere.
By Anon on Jul 12 | 1:23 pm
“thereby passing one of the most draconian voter ID laws in the United States” The title of the column is “Silencing Students.” The column immediately devolves into a discussion of the poor, elderly and those without means. Are Dartmouth students poor? Maybe, but they are getting loads of someone else’s money to go to school at Dartmouth if they are and have $10 available at any time of day or night, if they need it. Are Dartmouth students elderly? I don’t think so. Do Dartmouth students have driver’s licenses…I would have to think so. Are Dartmouth students without means or access to means? No. Now let’s talk “draconian.” Does the columnist know what “Draconian” means? Do the readers? Draco was a 7th century BC Athenian ruler known for his “Killer” code of laws. Death was the prescribed punishment for nearly all offenses. Is paying $10 for a voter ID if you have no other acceptable ID, draconian? Nope.
By Bobo on Jul 12 | 1:38 pm
Let’s see. We have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of illegals, felons and dead voting in the U.S. every election. Want to go door-to-door canvassing the voters in Chicago, for instance, better get out your cemetery maps. Don’t believe that it’s still happening? And coincidentally, I’m so, so sure, they vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. Just like in Washington State where Democrat candidate for governor Christine Gregoire became governor after receiving more votes from Seattle (King County) than there were total registered voters…see, they just needed to add a few hundred and then she won. Like Minnesota where Senator Coleman lost to Al Franken after they “found” 500 ballots in the trunk of a car somewhere…all 500 were Franken ballots. Shocking isn’t it? Coleman leading all along and they just kept on finding ballots for Franken in the strangest places until he had more than Coleman and then they called the election over. I want to hear any Dartmouth College student, not from NH, make the case that they deserve to vote in state and local elections in NH. They never lived there up[ until the time they went to school there, they won’t live there after they finish school. They mostly aren’t there when school is out, most don’t spend the summer there when it isn’t their summer term. Nearly all students take at least one of their terms away from campus if not two or three. They don’t have jobs there, they pay no taxes, they don’t live in the community, they live in the campus bubble. They really don’t do anything that would qualify them to be called a resident or for doing anything even remotely contributing to the state at large other than a good chunk of someone else’s money is being spent for them to be there or wherever they are. Now they complain that a Dartmouth ID won’t be good enough to vote and they will have to pay $10. Sounds just like the whining “entitled” class that always cries and votes to take other people’s money for their right to vote to force others to do what they want them to do. Every one of them is an Obama supporter. Every one of them is a big fat baby who wants to use other people for their ends. That is, their fat rear ends.
By anon on Jul 16 | 4:54 pm