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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 1971)
Registration dilemma to upset college town politics by Jacquin Sanders (Newsweek Feature Service) For most Americans-and for the state and Federal legislators who so overwhelmingly approved it the 26th Amendment lowering the voting age to 1 8 is an idea whose time has clearly arrived. But for citizens of small towns with large universities, the 26th is the most ominous development since the ins ; llation of the income tax. ctom Amherst, Mass., (7,000 registered over-21 voters; 15,000 potential student voters) to Gainesville, Fla.. (22.000 registered voters; 20.000 student population), to Bloomington, 111., (pop. 43.000. including children: university pop. 31,000) to a dozen similarly beset towns on the West Coast, citizens are living with the possibility that their local governments may be taken over by "transient," non-taxpaying students. Tm going to fight this thing like hell," sayd New Hamshire's Attorney General Warren Rudman. And as a frightening example, he points to the state university's Durham campus where students outnumber townsmen by5-to-l. "What happens if these kids decide that teachers need a minimum salary of S9.000 and that the town needs a new high school?" he asks. "They float a bond issue and then graduate and move on to greener for the finest in popcorn. . . CLIFTON'S CORN C 1150 No. 48th BEG UWAC MEETING WED SEPT 8, 7:J0pi IN TilE UNION flM.pOSHD All come University Women's Action Group t9 planning meeting aftlwomen urged to attend. iMSOil The "Gypsy Cut" The wind's in your hair. Curls fall in a wavy tumble. It's all part of the gypsy way of today and it's yours with a new gypsy cut" from H S. The cut is the most essential step in making a hair-do work for you. Which is why we have specially trained our staff to give the "gypsy cut". Call 477-9211 and make an appointment for your "gypsy cut" today. Re Style cut $4. Beauty Salon, Third Floor. pastures. And who's left holding the bag?" Two out of three Americans, a recent Gallup poll shows, are against collegians voting at school. And across the country, it is not the radicalism but the idealism of the 18-21-year-olds that is most feared. Local officials seem relatively unworried that student takeovers will result in legalized drugs, free abortions and the like. What really disturbs them is the possible damage to their pocketbooks. "What if they elect a town council that gets carried away on this ecology kick?" asks a New Haven, Conn., city official. "They could make the anti-pollution laws so stiff it could drive out factories. And the students wouldn't be hurt. Their money comes from daddy." But the irresponsibility of the student-office-holder cannot be taken for granted. Three years ago. University of Wisconsin students managed to elect a long-haired, somewhat scruffy-looking graduate student named Paul Soglin to the Madison city council. Today Soglin. 26. frets about the old pictures of him that are still being used and offers statistics to show that his re-election in 1970 could have been accomplished even without the student vote. "People were afraid we were going to saddle the townspeople with big bond issues and would not be concerned with city problems as a whole." sayd Soglin. "But I think we have a better grasp of city development problems, traffic-engineering and all the nitty-gritty issues." Still. Soglin and the three students who have followed him to the city council have not turned conservative, "probably the key difference is that we accept civil disobedience." he sayd. "When we take oath as a city official, the law is not so sacred that we drop all moral responsibility." But Soglin and his fellow sludent-councilmen were more than 21 when elected and had established their residency. It is a different story with the new crop of potential voters, most of whom live in dormitories and are still considered permanent residents of their parents homes. It is this technicality on which those who fear student Noc-viting base their hopes. So far, only six states (Massachusetts, Honda. Louisiana, Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Washington! are allowing students to register in the college towns where they live most of the year. Some states are marking time while others are either passing or J J h r ' V 1 . il ' ' A J- i W pondering various laws that would permit students to register only in their home towns. And in Congress, bills have been proposed that would permit students to vote in national elections while at college but not in local ones. It is a nice but not neat legal problem. Forcing the students to go home to vote or to go through the cumbersome process of absentee ballotting clearly makes the voting right more difficult for them than for people who need only travel a few blocks to their local polling place. On the other hand, most students do not pay taxes in their university communities and do not intend to make their homes there. Predictably, as the states and communities set up laws and processes designed to prevent students voting in college towns, court actions are getting underway. In fact, the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups have begun such actions in 1 1 states. Typical of local efforts to keep students from voting in their university communities is the procedure developed by election officials in the Champaign-Urbana area where 31.000 University of Illinois students could conceivably dominate community politics. Champaign County Clerk Dennis Bing, the man in charge of election registration, says that "in reality, the students' hearts are not here" and he clearly intends to see that their votes are not there either. "They'll have to present pretty good evidence," he warns, "ihat they're on their own. that they are self-supporting and receive no funds from their parents and that they live here the year around. They could I present evidence that their car is registered here or show us state and Federal income tax forms to prove their parents do not support them. "And we'd probably ask if they go home for summer or Christmas and, if they do, that could be evidence that they Sophomore Men M . . . good football seats . . . great organization bring $14 and I.D. Tuesday, September 7 Union Aud. 5:00 p.m. actives and workers bring ID and $14.50 to Union at same meeting aren't permanent residents here." Bing is a Republican. So is California Attorney General Evelle Younger, who has made a ruling (now being tested in the state supreme court) that unmarried 18 to 2 1 -year-olds are required to register in the district where their parents reside. Indeed, the opposition to students voting in college towns is led to a large extent by Republicans of all stripes. Recently, New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller quietly signed a bill making it all but impossible for students who cannot prove permanent residence to register where they go to school. On the other hand. Democrats tend with, of course, some exceptions to support student voting. Naturally, it cannot be known how much this attitude expresses Democratic liberalism and how much Democratic cognizance that both the polls and the early registration figures show young voters going their way by 2 - to - I margins or better. At any rate, man. Democrats are talking up the on-campus vote, particularly in California where the I.I million persons between 18 and 21 have been registering Democratic by almost 3-to-l. "People who are against it have a paranoic fear of young people," says California Secretary of State bdmund g. Brown Jr., the up-and-coming son of the former governor. "But they forget that people who drop out of society drop out of politics." But if present indications are borne out. the majority of the young may not get into politics, let alone drop out. To date, campus registration drives have mostly fizzled. There is an occasional successful one, to be sure: at Queens College in New York City, for instance 80 per cent of the eiigibles turned out. But a drive at the University of Florida at Gainesville was more typical. There 1.400, not the anticipated 14.000, actually registered. And another interesting aspect of the 18-21 vote remains to be probed. Though students at the prestige schools and the huge state universities have gotten - or brought down on themselves most of the attention, it is important to put the numbers of all these potential voters in perspective. Many of them are in junior colleges and smaller institutions which tend to be more politically conservative. And half the under-21 vote isn't in school at all. They are working people, housewives and the unemployed. So despite the understandable fears of the college towns and of a large number of office holders and taxpayers, the liberal menace of the 1 8-2 1 -year-old voter has yet to he proved. PAGE 2 THE DAILY NEBRASKAN TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 1971
