Maximilian Fuhrig

Introduction

With polls opening in less than a day, there’s no better time than now to ballot out the latest on barriers to student voting. Many Miami students will be voting for the first time, and most undergrads have never voted in a Presidential election before. According to a poll conducted by Miami Student Life, as many as 87% of students intended to vote this cycle. Yet voting isn’t always the straightforward process that it ought to be. This is especially the case for many of the third of Miami students who come from out-of-state, and the still many in-state students who live too far away to vote in person on election day. For these students, their best option is to vote absentee, or change their registration to Oxford. Neither of these processes are necessarily straightforward.

Barriers to Student Voting

I experienced these difficulties first hand when I ordered my own ballot. I’m a Virginia resident, and I opted to vote back home instead of changing my registration to Oxford. Virginia allows voters to request absentee ballots online using the Virginia department of elections website. Yet when I attempted to login to this website with my personal information, I was told that I wasn’t registered to vote. As far as I knew this was false; voter registration was a defining moment of my 18th birthday after all! I called my county’s board of elections to see if this was just an error and fortunately in my case it was, but thanks to the error (which still isn’t resolved) I wouldn’t be able to order a ballot online. Instead I had to fill out a paper form and email it back to the county. After I sent the form, there was no verification letting me know my ballot was on its way or even that the form had been received. That was on October 14th. Eleven days later, and still without a ballot, I called the county board of elections again to see if it had been sent. They informed me that my ballot had been sent on October 11th and should have arrived by now. If I wanted, they could send me a new ballot, and my old ballot would be voided. I opted to have a new ballot sent. If you didn’t catch that, they told me that my ballot had been sent on the 11th, three days before I actually requested it. Six days later, on the 31st it still hadn’t arrived. Only then did a friend mention to me that it might be in my dorm’s mailroom and not my mailbox. Thirty minutes later I had my ballot in my hands thanks to the help of my RA. I’m not sure how long it had been in the mailroom. Why hadn’t the University sent an email to students reminding them to check if they had any mail, especially ballots, in the mailrooms of their dorms instead of in their mailbox? I had never even been told by anyone before that mail could just sit in the mailroom if it was too small for the package center but too large for a mailbox. Also, and I can’t speak to whose responsibility this may be, but I never received my original ballot at all. I have no idea what happened to it, and no way to check since I don’t have access to digital ballot tracking thanks to the technical error I mentioned earlier.

My story isn’t unique, but at least I was able to vote. I heard from a student who told me that their ballot had been sent to their home address and wouldn’t make it to them in time for the election. Another reported that they had been told by an election worker that a University mail room wasn’t a secure enough location to receive a ballot.

Students attempting to register in Ohio face their own set of challenges. The trouble starts on the Ohio Secretary of State website. The “College Voters” page refers out-of-state students who are interested in registering to the page: “Voter Eligibility & Residency Requirements” only for the section on college students to refer back to the original page. Fortunately, Miami created a Voting Navigator for students that directs them to proper information on how to register in Ohio and vote on election day. People who wanted to register online however were required to register with an Ohio ID and had to do so no later than October 7th. Those without an Ohio ID had to register by paper; in-person or by mail. That requirement is particularly burdensome for college students. Even after registration, barriers still persist. According to 19thnews, a new Ohio voter ID law disproportionately impacts students. Challenges also persist for absentee voters. According to the League of Women Voters, several states do not have systems for “notice and cure”, which notify voters when there are issues with their mail-in ballot and allow them to correct those issues in time for the election. The League is even participating in ongoing challenges to absentee voting restrictions in a number of states, including Ohio.

Exploring Changes

It doesn’t have to be this way. There are a number of changes that individual states could make to improve their electoral systems, or could be implemented on a national level given constitutional changes.

Many countries have automatic registration, and half the states do as well, yet even in the states with automatic registration there is room for improvement. According to a report by the Institute for Responsive Government, most of these automatic registration systems are run through state DMV’s, so people who don’t drive will not be automatically registered, up to 15% of the population by some estimates. Meanwhile the same report describes how Germany combines residency and registration. Whenever a German citizen changes their address and informs the government, their voter registration information is updated in kind. Also everyone is automatically registered when they turn 18 years old. Germany also requires municipalities to inform voters about their registration status and the upcoming election by mail weeks in advance. Such a system does not exist in much of the United States.

Another more novel yet bold solution to voting barriers would be the adoption of an e-voting system. Such a system is used in several countries and even in a number of states under limited circumstances; particularly for overseas members of the military and those with disabilities. The most noteworthy example of online voting is the case of Estonia. According to e-Estonia, a group that lobbies for Estonia’s leading global role in digital governance, 2023 saw 51% of Estonian’s cast their vote in elections that year online. Digital voting was first introduced in Estonia in 2005 and since then 13 electoral cycles have been conducted securely online through Estonia’s eID system. The system is monitored in real time by experts and is frequently audited for problems. The security of the system is especially remarkable given Estonia’s proximity to and cold relationship with Russia, a country known for their interference in American elections. Despite the system’s successes in Estonia, experts are skeptical about the widespread use of such a system in the United States according to an article from NPR. America simply lacks the digital infrastructure required to ensure such a system would be secure. Regardless, in 2020 300,000 Americans voted online; mostly members of the military and the disabled.

Tomorrow’s election promises to be one of the most contentious and close in recent memory. The student vote remains an important yet often elusive segment of the electorate in part because of restrictive barriers put in place by state governments. Whatever the outcome, we can all take a moment to appreciate the democratic system and hope for the continued success of a system which has spent the better part of 250 years constantly improving access and representation. Happy Election Day!