Controversy over voter registration and ID laws typically centers on whether they disenfranchise poor and minority voters. Here in New Hampshire, a change in voter registration forms is facing a court challenge because of the hurdles it presents to college students, the Christian Science Monitor Reports. College students have long been able to vote here while retaining residency in other states. But the Republican-controlled legislature voted to add a paragraph to registration forms requiring people to declare that they are subject to laws that apply to residents, including having to register their cars here and obtain a New Hampshire driver’s license.
That contradicts other laws on the books defining residency versus “voting domicile,” and because it includes fees, it’s an unconstitutional “poll tax” that impedes voting rights, the lawsuit claims.
“The amendment to the voter registration form was passed in a context of frustration that out-of-state students were voting in New Hampshire,” says Alan Cronheim, cooperating attorney with the New Hampshire Civil Liberties Union Foundation, which filed the suit Sept. 12 on behalf of the League of Women Voters of New Hampshire and five out-of-state college students……Read More