Voter Reform Should Address Student Voters

Since our legislators are being asked to consider minor election reform in this legislative session, there is no better time than the present to address another serious problem, non-resident student voters in college towns. In Indiana a person is eligible to register to vote after only 30 days of residency in a precinct prior to the next election. Herein lies the problem; students are eligible to vote in local elections where they have little or no interest in local politics. No one wants to deny these non-resident students their right to vote and with that said, wouldn’t the most logical approach be for them to cast an absentee ballot in their own hometown? Why after only thirty days should a student be allowed to cast a vote and affect the outcome of a local politics for years to come?

For convenience sake, there is certainly nothing wrong with non-resident students being allowed to vote locally for Federal candidates. They should even be allowed to vote for State candidates providing they are from this state however, for them to be allowed to vote for local candidates that will be in office long after they are gone is simply unfair to local residents. Ask any resident in a community with a population of 120,000 if they would like to have 30,000 transient voters affecting the outcome of their next election. Granted, not all of these people vote but the percentages remain fairly constant.

Getting to the root of this problem one doesn’t have to look to far, you simply need to ask yourself, who stands to benefit the most from the student vote, Republicans or Democrats? Obviously, the answer is the Democrats and here is why. According to a recent study by Robert Lichter, a professor at George Mason University found that college faculties are overwhelmingly liberal, even more so than previously considered. According to the data, 72% of those teaching in American universities consider themselves liberal. This same survey revealed that 50% of the faculty considered themselves to be Democrats and only 11 % to be Republicans. This imbalance has created a power shift locally of catastrophic proportions and continues to provide the liberal left a powerful voting base each election cycle. When liberal professors are allowed to impress upon the student body day in and day out their own personal brand of political bias, these biases are adopted by the student body and become reflective of their own political viewpoints. Conservative candidates cannot possibly overcome the impact of the constant bombardment of liberalism on campus no matter how hard they try.

The Democrats cry foul when someone suggests that temporary residents, i.e. students, should not be allowed to vote in local elections. Why do they oppose these reforms, for obvious reasons, the deck is stacked heavily in their favor. They know what they’ve got and they're scared to death that someone is going to take it away from them. When Republicans suggest cleaning up the election process the Democrats immediately decry that people will be denied their right to vote and suggest that voters will be disenfranchised, intimidated and confused. How can anyone be denied the right to vote if they are offered the opportunity to vote absentee in their own hometown? Sure, maybe a handful of students do eventually end up living here and actually are impacted by their vote, but the vast majority of them are here for only a short time. Most of these students couldn’t tell you the name of our local sheriff but the odds are they know who the sheriff is back home. Until this inequity is resolved, our local elections will always be tainted with the stench of impropriety and that truly is disenfranchising to the permanent residents of our community.