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Replies to post #108975 on LEE KRAMER'S ROOM: With Views
01/24/24 12:57 PM
Republican-controlled legislatures around the country have moved to erect new barriers to voting for high school and college students in what state lawmakers describe as an effort to clamp down on potential voter fraud. Critics call it a blatant attempt to suppress the youth vote as young people increasingly bolster Democratic candidates and liberal causes at the ballot box.
As turnout among young voters grows, new proposals that change photo ID requirements or impose other limits have emerged.
Laws enacted in Idaho this year, for instance, prohibit the use of student IDs to register to vote or cast ballots. A new law in Ohio, in effect for the first time in Tuesday’s primary elections, requires voters to present government-authorized photo ID at the polls, but student IDs are not included. Identification issued by universities has not traditionally been accepted to vote in the Buckeye State, but the new law eliminates the use of utility bills, bank statements and other documents that students have used before.
A proposal in Texas would eliminate all campus polling places in the state. Meanwhile, officials in Montana – where Democrat Jon Tester is seeking a fourth term in one of 2024’s highest-profile Senate contests – have appealed a court decision striking down additional document requirements for those using student IDs to vote.
And voting rights advocates say a longstanding statute in Georgia, which bars the use of student IDs from private universities, has made it more difficult for students at several schools – including Spelman and Morehouse, storied HBCUs in Atlanta – to participate in Georgia’s competitive US Senate and presidential elections.
“Republican legislatures … are pretty transparently trying to keep left-leaning groups from voting,” said Charlotte Hill, interim director of the Democracy Policy Initiative at UC-Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy. Rather than trying to sway young voters, lawmakers seem willing “to shrink the eligible electorate,” she added.......
