Student votes stymied at the polls

Ever since “Boxers or briefs?,” presidential campaigns have recognized the potential in motivating young voters. The Obama campaign targeted these first-time voters more than ever. Phone banks were filled with college students. They were registering to vote at sports events, in the lunch line, and, of course, online. This was an election about a new generation. About hope.

But for some student voters, it was the same old problem when they got to the polls.

Democratic Party leaders had to intervene at one downtown polling place when a poll manager challenged some students on their right to vote. First-time voters who register by mail are often required to provide a second form of identification at the polls. Though a student identification card is sufficient, a poll manager challenged students who attempted to use their college ID.

Warring Howe Jr., a local attorney and former county Democratic Party chair, was contacted and intervened at the poll. He says the problem was a “well-intentioned,” though misinformed, poll manager.

Precincts around colleges tend to breed confusion regarding registrations, says State Election Commission spokesman Chris Whitmire.

“Some think the second ID is needed to verify residency, and that’s not true,” he says. “The purpose is just to prove identification, that they are who they say they are.”

Whitmire says the state’s poll manager handbook was edited to stress the fact. Cynthia Rosengren, who organized the local Get Out the Student Vote campaign, expected the problem in advance after she’d quizzed a few poll workers and they couldn’t come up with an answer. She had county Election Director Marilyn Bowers confirm that student IDs were acceptable prior to election day in an attempt to prevent confusion.

Poll managers were given the correct information, but Bowers says that there is a lot for them to remember in a short time period and that they’re told to refer to their handbook for questions.

Students who were challenged at the polls should have been given the opportunity to vote on a provisional ballot — a paper ballot sealed in an envelope with an explanation of why the voter was challenged. These ballots also include voters who went to the wrong polling place or sent in mail-in absentee ballots without a signature or witness. Of the provisional ballots considered by the county election commission, less than half were approved as valid.

Bowers is unaware how the students’ provisional ballots fared. If the poll manager simply wrote that “additional ID was not given,” then they were likely refused.

Even though the problem wasn’t recognized until late in the afternoon, Howe says he was told only about a dozen students were impacted. But if word had spread on campus regarding the trouble at the polls, it may have stymied turnout. When the issue was resolved after 6 p.m., Rosengren says students were informed at an election watch party on campus and that some reportedly got up and left to reach the polls before they closed.

It’s likely other schools across the region and state had similar problems, she says.

“That’s something we’re going to try to fix next time,” Roengren says. “It needs to be handled by the state.”

The confusion about student registration usually comes with concerns about where they’re allowed to vote — either at home or at a school. The law allows them to register in whichever location they consider their residence.

“The answer is either, just not both,” Whitmire says.

Howe says Republicans have played off those confusions in the past, though that doesn’t appear to have been a factor in the College of Charleston incident.

A student at the local Art Institute of Charleston complained to the City Paper that day-long classes running from when polls opened at 7 a.m. until well after polls closed that night prevented some students from voting. A strict attendance policy puts students’ grades in danger if they skip a class.

Institute spokeswoman Page Crone says the school encouraged early and absentee voting, suggesting that students should have planned ahead.

“We went overboard to have voting rallies and voter registration on campus,” she says.

Nationally, turnout at precincts near colleges likely overwhelmed polling officials who were “under-prepared and under-resourced,” Heather Smith, executive director of Rock the Vote, told Gannett News Services following Election Day.

Questions about whether students were properly registered led federal election observers to intervene and monitor voting at Middle Georgia College in Bleckley, Ga. Fifty students at Grinnell College in Iowa were challenged because students registered with the school’s general address and not their dorm room, but their votes were eventually counted.

The e-mail system at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., was compromised on Election Day, with a message sent to students telling them they could vote on Wednesday.

Concerns about the long waits at polling places were almost a hindrance themselves, according to the Chronicle of Higher Eduction. A report from Penn State noted 1,000 voters lined up when polls opened. The student government at Temple University in Pennsylvania hired a DJ to entertain waiting voters, and a professional football player handed out autographs to those in the line at the University of South Florida.

President-elect Barack Obama praised the work and determination of young voters, saying in his acceptance speech that they had “rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy.”

But, for some students, that work and determination took a lot more than just checking a box.

“The barriers these students face to execute their Constitutional right is ridiculous,” Rosengren says.