All college students should have the right to vote, even in their college towns

My Opinion

According to the website www.realclearpolitics.com the New Hampshire House of Representatives introduced a bill that would bar students from voting in their college towns unless they lived there before enrolling in that school.

Thomas Gounley, the executive editor of New Hampshire, said, “The bill would require that ‘the domicile for voting purposes’ of a college student would be the town or city ‘in which such person had his or her domicile immediately prior to matriculation … even though his or her intent to return thereto
is uncertain.’”

This means that college students will only be able to vote in the town or city in which they have their domicile, or their legal residence, and they will not have the choice to have their domicile in their college town.

Right now students are able to choose their hometown or their college town as their domicile. I for one do not care about what is going on in my hometown as much as I care about what is going on in my college town.

Whatever is going on in my college town is what directly affects me, my friends and my neighbors.

The students in New Hampshire should have the choice of having, or not having, a say in what happens in their college towns.

The reasons for this bill, according to UNH sophomore Michael Weeden, are that the issues are different in each state and that “college students are more knowledgeable of the issues where they are domicile, rather than where they attend college.”

Though it may be true that some college students do not know or care about what is going on in the town or city they attend college, I find this proposal limiting to those students who do care and want to exercise their right to vote.

The New Hampshire Speaker of the House, William O’Brien, said that students are mostly interested in voting only during the federal elections.

“There is hardly any involvement in the local elections,” said UNH College Republicans President Robert Johnson.

If the United States wants people who care to vote and create this country for themselves, then they should not be restricting the rights of college students to vote in their college towns. I don’t think the solution for uncaring students is to take more of their choices away.

The students who do not care about what happens in the town or city in which they reside for a semester or two will not care about this bill.

However, students should always have the choice to care or not to care, to vote or not to vote.

Opinion 2

Republican William O’Brien, the New Hampshire Speaker of the House and a noted critic of student voting.
While he has not publicly commented on this bill in particular, he has famously said in the past that students are “basically doing what I did when I was a kid and foolish, and voting as a liberal.’’ http://www.headcount.org/new-hampshire-bill-would-bar-student-voting/

Opinion 3

Durham resident Rep. Timothy Horrigan (D-Strafford) said that the bill was an attempt by House Republicans to make it harder for people to vote.

"It's a bad idea to get people out of the habit of voting," Horrigan said. "People already think it's a difficult process."

http://www.tnhonline.com/proposed-bill-would-bar-students-from-voting-in-college-towns-1.1922731