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. . .
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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
