Collegiate Times

When Montgomery County General Registrar for Elections Randy Wertz received a packet of 25 incomplete voter registration applications nearly two weeks after the Oct. 11 deadline, it wasn?t the first time he would be disappointed with the efforts of the New Voters Project to drum up voting enthusiasm among the area?s youth.

Clay Randa, a policy analyst for the Virginia State Board of Elections, said the ballots in question were signed before the close of books, meaning that if completed they would have been eligible for registration.

Wertz received the packet along with a handwritten note describing the fact that the New Voter Project had been attempting to contact the individuals.

?We were notified by the state board that, even if they?re filled out completely incorrectly you have to mail them in ? like people filled out to vote from North Carolina,? said Sasha Cohen, the Virginia Tech campus organizer for the New Voters Project.

But issues like voters registering for North Carolina highlight for Wertz the ill-informed manner in which the New Voter Project and other such organizations carried out their drives.

?A lot of the students ? whenever they register for Montgomery County, they would send us an absentee ballot to have a ballot sent to the dorm room ? you can?t do that for convenience. I don?t know what information was provided the students when they filled them out,? Wertz said.

Wertz?s concerns stem from the Chicago-based New Voters Project?s aloof attitude when dealing with local government.

?This New Voters Project was from out of state. And they didn?t know Virginia law ? they were going out and telling students that they could, if registered in Pennsylvania, vote in Virginia. They were telling (students) incorrect information and students were just filling out any form, not knowing what it could do to them,? Wertz said.
Wertz contends that many of the issues the New Voters Project ran into could have been remedied by a visit to his office at the beginning of the school year.

Cohen, however, maintains that that is exactly what transpired.

?I did come and contact him in the first two weeks that I was here, Aug. 30, approximately, and we did talk about how to fill the forms out correctly, state law and where students are allowed to register to vote,? Cohen said.

While Cohen says that Wertz informed her of potential complications of out-of-state voters registering in-state (scholarship ineligibility and car insurance, for example), he did not specifically state that students were not allowed to register at their dorm addresses.

But Cohen admits that New Voters Project trainees were not apprised of these potential hazards.

?When we went into training with that, we didn?t ? address that. We taught them to ask, ?Are you registered to vote? Would you like to register to vote here??? Cohen said.

The conflict between voter registration drives such as the New Voters Project and small-locale registrars highlights a taut generational tension: citizens of small areas feeling that large blocs of students will mute their interests in the area with students stating that they are just as part of the community as anyone.

Virginia law is cited as ambiguous by both Cohen and Wertz, allowing registrars to apply any number of criteria to determine ?domicile,? the deciding factor of where a student may vote. These range from change of address to more difficult processes, such as altering drivers license or insurance information.

No matter the letter, Wertz feels that the drives did not capture the spirit.

?This is the first time I?ve dealt with them. They say they?re non-partisan and again I don?t know ? I know they want young people to vote and all of us want that ? but there?s a right way to do it, and whenever they first came in this year they didn?t do it the right way,? he said.

Cohen expresses no remorse.

?I?m personally not ashamed at all ? the registrars want to limit the student?s abilities to register at their campus addresses ? no other group of people goes through this type of questioning about where they register to vote,? Cohen said.