Not Home, Not Welcome:
Barriers to Student Voting
A report by Project Democracy in 2004 exposed the hurdles students face when trying to exercise their constitutional right to vote in their campus communities.
College students are increasingly facing obstacles to voting and civic participation in the localities where they attend school. From restrictive residency requirements to inconveniently located polling places, state and local election officials are impeding students' fundamental right to vote. These systematic attempts to prevent student voting have garnered some national attention following the reports of widespread voter disenfranchisement and suppression in the 2000 general election. However, the press focuses more on low student voter turnout than the structural barriers that discourage, and often prevent, young people from voting. Although Rock the Vote and Rolling Stone have highlighted individual cases of student voter suppression, very little attention has been given to the issue.
Project Democracy was an initiative of LCV Education Fund and is now named Student Conservation Voters, it is a nonpartisan, nationwide effort to train and mobilize young Americans in voter registration and outreach work.
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View the full
Report here
(4.0 mb PDF) |
