Joshua Coke, a WSU student who made a bid for Pullman City Council in 2005, couldn’t say for certain how the new primary date might affect students, but he believes many of the students who want to vote on local issues already live and are registered to vote in Pullman.What level-headed comments, compared with these:
“It’s almost disenfranchising the students,” said Lenna Harding, a Pullman resident.Disenfranchising the students? Please. All voting in Whitman County will be via mail after April 1. Anyone registered to vote in Whitman County, including students, will be mailed a ballot. For what it's worth, there were 2 voters during last September's primary at the Pullman Presbyterian Church, the polling place for the largely-student College Hill area. I think most students are already voting absentee.
Harding is worried the earlier primary date will mean students who leave Pullman for the summer will have to register in their home counties, losing an opportunity to vote on local issues.
This legislation is one of the key reforms that came out of the 2004 gubernatorial election debacle. The late primary makes it difficult to print, mail, and receive back absentee ballots from the tens of thousands of service men and women based out of Washington who are deloyed overseas. That's who we ought to worry about being disenfranchised.
2 comments:
I am more of a Pepsi guy. But he is right. The date of the vote will not disenfranchise voters. Those who want to vote will always find a way. Those who don't will always find an excuse.
What Ms. Harding probably means is that liberal professors won't have a hand in influencing students votes. The students will be able vote at home, without the undue influence of classroom indocrination and the threat of losing a grade.
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