Guest blogged by Ernest A. Canning
(With additional reporting and snark by Brad Friedman)
Maine’s GOP Chairman, Charlie Webster, displayed a remarkable level of ignorance about the right of college students to register and vote in the Pine Tree State during a recent appearance on local radio, weeks after virtually everyone in the state has been trying to explain to him that he is off his nut.
Earlier this summer, Webster raised eyebrows (and more than a few laughs) when he brought the names of some 200 out-of-state college students to the ME Secretary of State, seeking an investigation for “voter fraud.”
“I am convinced that my research proves that [voter] fraud is a problem, and I’ve only found the tip of the iceberg,” Webster said during a press conference at the State House at the time, though he shared no evidence of any of the students having voted twice, or otherwise having illegally registered.
Webster’s “research” began after a petition effort was launched seeking a “voter veto” ballot initiative to reverse a law recently passed by the Republican-led state legislature ending the state’s 38-year-old practice of allowing for same-day voter registration. The new Maine law is just one of many new voter suppression efforts enacted by the GOP under the wholly unsupported guise of combating “voter fraud” in states across the nation over the past several months since the GOP took over many statehouses in the 2010 election.
The state’s GOP chair has apparently never heard the old axiom about once you’re in a hole, stop digging…
When asked about his general concerns about “voter fraud” at the July presser, Webster claimed he had personally witnessed what he described as “polling flooding” by special interest groups. When asked to name those groups, he cited MoveOn.org, ACORN and “obviously, the Democrat party has a plan to do that too.”
While there is no actual evidence of anyone associated with either MoveOn.org or ACORN ever having cast any illegal ballot — at any time, in any place — media wondered how Webster could describe Maine’s Democratic Party itself as a “special interest group.”
“In my opinion they are “¦ The difference is we [Republicans] represent regular people, how’s that? We represent working class people, people who drive a truck. We don’t represent the far left of Maine,” Webster is quoted by the Bangor Daily News as responding. The paper went on to quote the Kennebec County District Attorney who responded to the allegations by noting: “We have never had any suggestion made to us that the Election Day registration of voters has led to the commission of any criminal acts. … The lack of prosecution has to do with the lack of any allegation suggesting abuses of the present system, much less any proof to back up any such assertion.”
Despite the lack of evidence in support his claims of intentional “voter fraud” by ME college students, even one month later — there have been no indictments called for by the Republican Secretary of State (a former vice chairman of the Maine GOP under Webster) — Webster has refused to back down.
Last week, in his continuing insistence that out-of-state students should not be allowed to vote in Maine, he said, “If I want to vote, I need to establish residency. I need to register my car and pay taxes in that community. You can’t just become a student and vote wherever you want.”
Charlie Webster is laughably clueless on this (or worse), as evidenced by his appearance last Friday on local radio station WGAN 560, where he was utterly shamed (if he has any) by hosts Ken Altshuler and Mike Violette…
Audio of ME GOP Chair Charlie Webster’s 9/2/11 WGAN appearance:
If you haven’t listened to the above, please do. It’s as amusing as it is sad.
But in hopes of helping out poor, confused Charlie — listening to the audio above makes it clear that this guy is not particularly bright — here are a few facts.
The Maine Supreme Judicial Court, as Bangor Daily News points out, long ago “ruled that students can consider a college dormitory their primary residence, which would allow them to vote in that community even if they are not full-time Maine residents.”
So far, what is known about the list of 206 names Webster brought to the SoS seeking an investigation, is that half of them were not even registered in any other state previously, so couldn’t have voted in two different states during the same election.
But as to the notion that someone, students in the case, must register a car, or pay income taxes locally (no doubt, most of them already pay local sales taxes, etc., but that has gone unmentioned by Webster) in order to establish residency, there is a lengthy body of case law here in the United States of America (that would be this country, Charlie, look it up if it’s not ringing a bell) finding that a requirement to pay a tax before being allowed to vote is simply unconstitutional.
In Harper vs. Virginia Board of Elections (1966), which invalidated a poll tax, the U.S. Supreme Court held [emphasis added]:
In (1979), in a 7-2 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a District Court finding that the Registrar of Waller County, TX failed to extend the same presumption of bona fide residency to Prairie View University students as had been extended to other Waller County residents.
As noted by the Bangor Daily News, residency within a Maine municipality can be established by [emphasis added] “a direct statement or oath, a motor vehicle registration, an income tax return, a piece of mail listing a current address or any other objective facts.”
The fact that a student may not pay income taxes in Maine — for example if they don’t have a job because they go to school all the time — or may not own a vehicle, or may have one registered in another state, does not eliminate residency or the right to vote. While a student from, say CA, cannot vote in both CA and Maine in the same election, they can treat their dorm in Maine as their residence.
Certainly, a student residing in a dorm has more extensive local contact with the community than, say, GOP Presidential candidate and former Gov. Mitt Romney, who was treated by Belmont, MA town clerk, Ellen Cushman as a local resident even though he had registered as a voter in his son’s unfinished basement in Massachusetts and didn’t live there, even as his principle residence was long ago established as being in CA, as GOP Presidential candidate Fred Karger has taken pains to point out.
Of course, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to uncover why the GOP has targeted college students for voter suppression in many states across the country. 2008 marked the second-largest youth voter turnout in U.S. history. The increase was especially great in precincts where college campuses are located and where younger voters preferred Obama to John McCain by a two-to-one ratio.
So while the Maine GOP has already succeeded, for the moment, in making it much harder for students to vote in the state due to their removal of same-day voter registration, the Chairman’s attempt to intimidate local student voters from out of state into not voting at all is not likely to get much purchase for now. Not if the rule of law still means anything to Republicans, anyway.
Sorry, Charlie.
UPDATE 09/10/11: The Sun Journal revealed that Webster is still at it. He now complains that “19 individuals, who all listed the same hotel address, were able to register to vote and cast a ballot [in the 2004 election].”
Webster admitted that he did not call the hotel to inquire about the individuals. He contended that their circumstances were irrelevant.
As it turns out, all 19 were students enrolled in St. Matthews Univ. School of Medicine. They had moved to study in Maine when their medical school in the Grand Caymen Islands was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan. They lived at the hotel because of an insufficient number of dorms at the university.
The Sun Journal added:
The Sun Journal also reported that on “Thursday, the Maine Secretary of State’s Office certified a people’s veto effort to restore same-day voter registration in Maine. The issue will be on the November ballot.”
UPDATE 09/25/11: After spending two months investigating the list of students compiled by ME GOP Chair Charlie Webster, the Pine Tree State’s Republican Secretary of State, Charles E. Summers, Jr., found that none of the 206 students on the list had committed voter fraud.
Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968).
But the Rethuglicans have won the war in Maine by making moves that will cut back the number of voters, and that’s all they really wanted to do.
Charlie Webster is just an idiot distraction, like in a magic trick, while the real con is going on elsewhere.
Thanks for adding Charlie’s claim that the GOP represents the working class, Brad. That may have surprised the billionaires in attendance at the Koch brothers’ 2011 summer seminar.
Its a strategy for some Republicons to muddy and confuse the low information voters. This guy is just an idiot.
What is the word “school” doing in that headline?
Czaragon @4 asked:
From urban dictionary:
In my ignored opinion the rethugs campaign to disenfranchise voter’s rights is tantamount to treason. The only voice that a citizen has in their government is their vote. To impede that right is to destroy the very core of a democratic society. The fraud is not voter fraud (of which there is scant evidence) but election fraud carried out on a large scale by the rethuglican crime machine.
Hello Ernest A. Canning,
Love the picture of Charlie Webster (a real working stiff). Or is that just a costume to fool the rubes? The goal of the Rethug party is to remove any and all non-rethug voters. Whatever method(s) work. Their motto seems to be “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Since Saint Ronny has been in office the number of non-rethug voters eliminated from voting rolls and more potential voters declared ineligible to be put on the voting rolls has increased. See Paul Weyrich you tube goo-goo syndrome video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPsl_TuFdes
Only way for their declared victor(y/ies) is using the methods of authoritarians (LCS). ()ying, ()heating and ()tealing.
They all should be able to vote, in their own state. That’s why we have absentee ballots; for the military, college students, and people likely to be on travel during the election.
If they pay out of state rates, then they aren’t residents of the state. If they’re not residents of the state they have no business voting in the state and local election IMO, regardless of what the court says.
And if I were a student in Maine paying out of state rates for college but being allowed to vote in the local election I’d talk with a lawyer. How can you be allowed to have residency status for voting but not for school fees?
WingnutSteve @8 wrote:
“Should”?
Have you read even one word of this article or listened to the audio?
This is not an open question. The 1979 Supreme Court case decided it.
College students have a choice — as a constitutional right! They can vote absentee in their state of origin, or, they can use their dorms as their residence, and vote in the same state in which they currently reside, period! That is the law.
Next, WingnutSteve asks:
First, unlike voting, enrollment in a specific institution of higher learning is not a constitutional right.
Second, at the time they apply for admission, out-of-state students do not live in their in-state dorm. Colleges impose the out-of-state fee upon such students when they enroll.
My son’s fiancé, who is from TX, enrolled in a Master’s program at UCLA. She paid out-of-state tuition her first year. During that time, she not only rented a CA apt., but obtained a CA DL and re-registered her car in CA.
For her second year, she applied for and received enrollment for in-state tuition.
What is your problem, Steve?
We are not talking about the right to vote twice in the same election — once by absentee ballot in the state of origin, and once by in-person ballot in the state where one resides.
Do you think students, for some reason, have less interest in how the communities in which they reside are governed than some other class of citizens?
I understand how the courts ruled *go figure*, apparently you didn’t read my entire post either. It was an opinion.
I was talking with a fella who lives in a beach community several years ago and he was griping about this very subject. Students at the large college where he lives get to vote regardless of where their actual residence is located. They get to impose tax increases, new laws, etc. without having any stake in the costs because they don’t work or pay taxes there. Increase sales taxes or property taxes to pay for this or that feel good thing? Sure. Vote to borrow more money to pay for that? Hell, where do I sign up?
That’s my opinion Ernie. You want to establish residence in that state, do it. You want to live in a dorm and vote, absentee.
I’ve read the back and forth between my pals Ernie and WingnutSteve. Setting aside that the courts have decided, over and again, that Steve is just flat wrong in his opinion (at least to what the law and Constitution is, versus what he thinks they should be – maybe he can find an activist judge to agree with him somewhere), I’ve got just have this one question: If I spend the majority of my year in a different state going to school there, living under their laws, paying their sales tax, going to a school which is certainly affected by all of those laws, why should I not be allowed to vote there again?
I went to school in New York, spent the bulk of my year there, with occasional trips “home” to visit my parents, and never actually moved back to Missouri, but stated in New York for a decade. At what point would I be allowed to have a voice in how the state I was living in for the vast majority of the year was governed? After I lived there for 1 year? 4 years? 10?
If I was unemployed for 2 years after my 4 years of college, would I only be allowed to vote there after 7 years, once I got a job?
Should those who do not have a job, because they are unemployed, not be able to vote at all until they are employed?
How far does your arbitrary sense of what you think is right — versus what the Rule of Law says is right — go?
WingNutSteve @10 wrote:
You still don’t get it. Their “dorm” is their “actual residence” if they so decide.
That is one of the benefits of a “free” society — mobility! You are not obligated to remain for life in one place. You can make one state your residence in 2011 and then decide to make another state your residence in 2012.
What would your “friend” prefer? A rule that mandated that one can only vote in their community of birth?
This blog and these comments are the thing itself. Charlie and WingnutSteve and their fellow travelers (“real americans”) simply want to limit the ability of anyone who doesn’t think like them and share their priorities to shape governance. They’ll keep fighting that fight, no matter how uninformed and destructive and anti-democratic. They’ll keep whining about “voter fraud” and never bother to learn the definition of voter fraud because it’s simply enough that they think this should be “fraud” just because it goes against their parochial sense of how things should be. Pathetic. Charlie still thinks he’s right. He’s still talking about it even though he is clueless about the law and why the law is the way it is. He’s still making his pathetic uninformed case. It’s pathological.
The state law disagrees with your comment that the dorm is their residence for voting purposes Ernie. The residence is a fixed and principle home to which the person intends to return and the person does not lose the residence if they leave home. The college can, and usually does, force students to move out of the dorm so it doesn’t qualify as a “fixed” residence the way I read the law.
Can college students just leave all their stuff in the dorm and expect it to be all safe and sound when they return from Summer break? If not, this also prevents the student from using a dorm as a residence for voting purposes.
Correction:
“The residence is a fixed and principle home to which the person intends to return and the person does not lose the residence if they leave home temporarily.”
WingNutSteve @14 & 15:
First, a link would have been helpful so we could see which state law you are speaking about.
Second, University enrollment, whether on the quarter or semester system, usually runs from late Summer (Aug./Sept.) to Spring (May/June).
A student can reside in a dorm at the time of a November General Election; leave to visit his/her parents in another state during the Christmas break, and expect to return to the same dorm (residence) at the end of the break.
Third, the 1979 case was decided 7-2 by the U.S. Supreme Court. It established that the right of college students to treat their dorms as their residence for voting purposes is a federal constitutional right.
It is a basic rule that a statute should be construed so as to preserve its constitutionality. The interpretation you are attempting to ascribe from this otherwise unidentified “state law,” would render it unconstitutional under the U.S. Constitution.
But nice try.
WingnutSteve @15 said:
Ya know what’s weird? When I went to school, I’d pay for my residence in the dorm, where I was a resident, who worked with the RAs (Resident Advisors) and over Christmas, I’d go visit my parents for a month or so, temporarily, and then return without losing my residence in the dorm! Crazy, huh?
Most maddening, of course, is that when I moved in, I had to pay to install a phone line, pay for that phone each month, as well as pay to turn on electricity and even pay for that every month! Can you imagine? I had to pay for phone and electricity for someone elses residence?!
Sigh… JT is right, of course, Steve. It seems you and Charlie wish to see the world as you want it to be, rather than as the law and Constitution, over decades, in multiple forums, have found it to actually be.
Naturally, you are more than welcome to challenge that law, if you think it is not settled. Though explaining why existing law is either unconstitutional or wrong would be a good place to start. So far, the only support you’ve offered for your belief that students shouldn’t be allowed to vote in the place they live the majority of the year, is that you don’t believe they should be able to.
I don’t suspect either you — or Charlie Webster — will get much traction on that basis. At least not in the court system. I suspect Fox “News” will be more sympathetic to it, and help to find activist judges who might try and agree with you.
I presume you are talking about Dunn V Blumstein Ernie, not positive because you didn’t provide a link.
If you were, it says no where in the ruling that a student has a constitutional right to use their dorm to establish residence. The law says a state can not establish excessive durational residence requirements for citizens to be able to register to vote.
In fact it also says:
This “equal right to vote,” Evans v. Cornman, supra, at 398 U. S. 426, is not absolute; the States have the power to impose voter qualifications, and to regulate access to the franchise in other ways.
And:
As noted infra at 405 U. S. 343-344, States may show an overriding interest in imposing an appropriate bona fide residence requirement on would-be voters. One who travels out of a State may no longer be a bona fide resident, and may not be allowed to vote in the old State. Similarly, one who travels to a new State may, in some cases, not establish bona fide residence, and may be ineligible to vote in the new State. Nothing said today is meant to cast doubt on the validity of appropriately defined and uniformly applied bona fide residence requirements.
BTW, the Maine requirements:
http://www.mainelegislature.org...1-Asec112.html
When you went home in June, were you able to return to your room and all your stuff in September Brad?
How was JT right? By tossing out some stupid accusations when he obviously doesn’t know what he’s talking about?
“limit the ability of anyone who doesn’t think like them and share their priorities to shape governance. They’ll keep fighting that fight, no matter how uninformed and destructive and anti-democratic. They’ll keep whining about “voter fraud” and never bother to learn the definition of voter fraud because it’s simply enough that they think this should be “fraud” just because it goes against their parochial sense of how things should be.”
He’s clueless and added nothing to the debate except baseless accusations and other stupid utterances which left wing koolaid drinkers are wont to do when they have nothing of substance…
WingnutSteve @ 18:
So based on your interpretation of the above then, this in particular:
…What happens if a state decides that someone who has moved out to attend college elsewhere, spending the majority of their time each year in another state, may not vote in their state? (You know, absentee voting is very restricted in many states.)
So, if Maine went with your interpretation of the law, and said an out-of-state student can’t vote there, even though they pay residency fees, electricity, etc. and they come from a state which has decided that those who do not live in the state for the majority of the year cannot vote there, those poor folks should not be allowed to vote anywhere, right?
You said that not me Brad. It doesn’t say “shall” it says “may” which leaves it up to the interpretation of the state. If someone moves to a different state and sets up residence there, then I’m pretty sure all states would consider the person who moved out to no longer to be a “bona fide resident of their state. The Supreme Court decision specifically gives the states the power to make that determination.
WingNutSteve @19 wrote:
You presumed wrong!
The relevant case is Symm vs. United States 439 U.S. 1105 (1979).
For a more in depth understanding, I’d recommend that you read Virginia State Election Board’s Use of Jim Crow-like Student Residency Questionnaire Raises Voting Rights Questions, which, among other things, observes that Symm “established that students can absolutely register to vote using their local college addresses, regardless of their permanent home addresses.”
I know, like Charlie Webster, you’re not an attorney, WingNutSteve, but it is truly unfortunately that you lack the common sense to follow the advice Brad added when he edited my original piece.
Oh, by the way, Symm post-dates Dunn.
My bad Ernie, I see the case to which you were referring. Please accept my apologies.
And even then it doesn’t mention the right to use dorm rooms to establish residence and the case I referred to specifically says that states have the power to determine their residency requirements.
I want it to be known that I’m a slow typist, and that I caught my mistake before reading the smarmy retort from Ernie.
And you’re right, I’m not an attorney and would never have considered it, attorneys suck. Nothing personal of course.
WingNutSteve @23 wrote:
You need to look more carefully. The only written opinions in Symm are the two dissents. The majority (7) Justices summarily upheld the ruling by the U.S. District Court.
The case involved the voter registration rights of students at Prairie View A & M University, a state-supported, predominately black university located in Waller County, TX.
Symm was the Waller County registrar of voters. People on the tax roll of Waller County as owning property or known to Symm and his deputies were routinely registered upon filing a state registration form.
Symm sent a residency questionnaire which asked whether the applicant was a college student, and, if so, inquired as to home address, property ownership, future plans.
The DoJ successfully obtained a permanent injunction from the U.S. District Court, which found that Symm’s registration practices and the questionnaire violated the 26th Amendment.
WingNutSteve @24 next states — “attorneys suck.”
I’m not surprised that those who bare a distaste for the rule of law, have a low opinion of attorneys.
Many people hate lawyers, until they need one.
I’ve needed a lawyer before and I still hate them! I keed I keed! I was being sarcastic before also Ernie, and I’m surprised you would seem to offend so easily. Especially from someone with such an acrid tongue as yourself. Believe me, I’ve been on the receiving end of your bitter sarcasm so often I pretty much just ignore it anymore…
Funny how your proof of the supreme court ruling that dorms are to be used to establish residence for voting purposes doesn’t seem to be in writing anywhere huh?
plus I don’t have a distaste of the law. the difference between you and I is you would selectively apply “the rule of law” based on ideological beliefs
You know WingNutSteve, it would have been refreshing if, just this once, you’d said, okay, Ernie, I was wrong on this one — and leave it at that! Instead, you persist in arguing about something for which you know nothing. The “no writing anywhere” claim would apply only if you ignore the content of the District Court proceedings, which the Supreme Court summarily upheld.
If you wish to ignore that which has been established law for the past 32 years, be my guest.
Must be nice Ernie. If I state almost anything on this site I have to have a link to back it up. You on the other hand get to just say “I’m write and you’re wrong”. So please post a link to a judgement which the supremes upheld, stating that a dorm room suffices for residence requirements to establish a persons right to vote.
In fact the supremes established that the state can set their own rules for establishing residence, cannot require a person to live in the area for an unreasonably long period of time before registering (more than 30 days), and cannot require non-property owners to fill out unnecessary questionnaires which specifically applies to ensuring students who meet normal residency requirements have the right to vote. I’m awaiting the words about the dorm sir.
BTW, have you heard this one: Q: What’s the problem with lawyer jokes? A: Lawyer’s don’t think they’re funny, and no one else thinks they’re jokes!
Thank you thank you.. I’ll be here all week!
Forgive my misspelling of “right”. I screwed that up so bad even spell check couldn’t help me.
While it may come as a shock to you, WingNutSteve, I have better things to do than spend my time educating one grossly uninformed individual about well-settled law.
The U.S. District Court Decision is United States vs. Texas (1978).
If you read the District Court decision, one of the first things you will find is a reference to Whatley v. Clark, 482 F.2d 1230 (5th Cir. 1973).
To save you a bit of time, here is a synopsis of what occurred, as set forth in the book, Quite Revolution in the South [Emphasis added].
By affirming the District Court decision in Symm, the U.S. Supreme Court approved the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal decision in Whatley that college students have a right to register in the community where they attend college.
I’ll leave you with the same advice WGAN gave to Charlie Webster. Stop talking or writing about this. The hole you’ve dug for yourself is now so deep, Brad and I will need a crane to pull you out.
Why didn’t ya just post the link in the first place ya dumbass. They do mention dormitory in that particular case. Surprisingly you got one right for a change…
Goooood job Ernie!
re WingNutSteve @32:
If, after playing the clueless role as The BRAD BLOG’s Charlie Webster, in which you posted 13 separate comments, spouting off about a topic for which you had absolutely no factual foundation for expressing an opinion, it makes you feel better to blame me for your ignorance, well, okay, fine!
I’m also not fond of your run-on sentence in comment #33. Comma count = 7. C’mon Canning, get your act together!
Alright you two! Get a room!
😉