As the Republican speaker of the New Hampshire House sees it, all college students are liberals.
Which is why William O'Brien of Mount Vernon emerged this week as supporting proposed legislation to change the state’s definition of resident to keep out-of-state college students from voting in state elections.
That didn’t get a favorable reaction from college organizations of Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians and others interested in the political process.
The key wording in HB 176 redefines domicile as “the most recent place where he or she as an adult or where his or her parents or legal guardians with whom he or she resided as a minor established a physical presence manifesting an intention to maintain that place as his, her, or their principal and continuous place of physical presence for domestic, social, and civic purposes.”
For example, if you’re from Beverly, Mass., and you’re a junior living in a Durham apartment while you attend the University of New Hampshire you wouldn’t be eligible to vote in Durham.
The bill is sponsored by Republican Rep. Gregory Sorg of Easton.
O'Brien complained in public comments about young people with no life experience voting liberal.
"I look at towns like Plymouth and Keene and Hanover, and particularly Plymouth. They've lost the ability to govern themselves,” he said to a group in Rochester.
He said students in college towns register to vote on Election Day "and are basically doing what I did when I was a kid and foolish, voting as a liberal.”
He added: “That's what kids do. They don't have life experience and they just vote their feelings. And they've taken away the town's ability to govern themselves. It's not fair."
The bill is being reviewed in the House Election Law Committee.
The Dartmouth, the student newspaper at Dartmouth College, noted this week that the the College Democrats, College Republicans and College Libertarians are starting a petition drive to oppose the bill.
College Republican President Richard Sunderland III told the paper that the legislation suggests a “generational gap” where people “assume that college students are more liberal.”
“It doesn’t matter whether we’re liberal or conservative — it just isn’t right,” he said. “Whether every college student is liberal or every college student is conservative, every vote gets to count, and you can’t change that.”
Paul Twomey, an attorney who often represents the state Democratic Party in voting cases, said the legislation violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which he said determined “there can’t be different tests for voting for different groups of people.”
Here are some Secretary of State guidelines on registering to vote and specific guidelines for voting as a student.
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