The voter registration code of Virginia has become a hot topic of debate among college students and young voters in the commonwealth following an August press release from the Montgomery County registrar.
Though Montgomery County Registrar Randy Wertz’s Aug. 25 press release intended to clarify the Virginia Voter Registration Code for college students in Montgomery County, the release caused confusion and was later revised.
The press release stated, “The Code of Virginia states that a student must declare a legal residence in order to register. A legal residence can be either a student’s permanent address from home or their current college residence. By making Montgomery County your permanent residence, you have declared your independence from your parents and can no longer be claimed as a dependent on their income tax filings — check with your tax professional. If you have a scholarship attached to your former residence, you could lose this funding. And, if you change your registration to Montgomery County, Virginia Code requires you to change your driver’s license and car registration to your present address within 30 days.”
Wertz said he issued the release in part because of misinformation related to voting that was being spread around the Virginia Tech campus.
“For example [the campaigns on campus] were telling students not to vote [by] absentee ballots,” Wertz said. “The students were being misinformed on a lot of issues, so I decided to send out a press release to take out from the code the issues that they needed to consider for residency.”
Kent Willis, executive director of the ACLU of Virginia, said he thought Wertz made an incorrect move by issuing the press release.
“The Montgomery County registrar was dead wrong,” Willis said, adding that contrary to Wertz’s statement, students should be able chose their own primary address without fear of any consequences.
“Voting is a right,” Willis said, “And it should be easy, and we should be doing everything we can to encourage people to participate in our democracy.”
If students feel more connected to the community in which they attend college, they ought to be able to vote there, Willis said.
“We’ve reacted to this [by] trying to get the message out to people doing voter registration work around the state, as well as students across the state, to contact us if they run into problems while trying to register to vote.”
Willis explained that the controversy surrounding Wertz’s comments related to the Virginia Voter Registration Code are nothing new.
In fact, for the past eight years, Willis said the ACLU of Virginia has addressed incidents around the commonwealth pertaining to registrars, like Wertz, who the organization believed were preventing, rather than encouraging, voter registration.
“The state code states that one of the purposes of being a registrar is to encourage individuals to register and to vote,” Willis said. “By creating obstacles for students, registrars are doing the opposite of what they’re supposed to do.”
Much of the controversy with the code, Willis said, is due to the fact that it is not clear — especially in terms of the issue of domicile, or where college students identify their central place of residency, as this determines where they will vote.
“In the end there’s a nuance here [because] students live in more than one place,” Willis said. “They should simply be able to make the choice of which is their primary place [of residency].”
In Charlottesville, Registrar Sheri Iachetta said she also believes it is up to the student to choose where he or she wants to register to vote.
“We don’t question their decisions.” Iachetta said. “If they want to register to vote, we let them. We are always students’ advocates and always will be.”
The City of Charlottesville is dedicated to treating University students like young adults, Iachetta said.
“We don’t question their decisions,” she said. “If they want to register to vote, we let them. We don’t ask any questions.”
Since becoming registrar 10 years ago, Iachetta said she has been a proponent of making the code more specific and clear to promote consistency among Virginia registrar offices.
“I think that if they’re going to want any consistency across the state then the [code] is going to need to be defined much more specifically,” Iachetta said. “Because, right now, it’s open for interpretation and its being interpreted very differently.”
Iachetta added that if the code is changed, she wants it to be changed in a way that will be beneficial to students looking to register in the commonwealth.
“I’m hoping if the definition does get changed or tightened that it’s going to be tightened pro-students,” she said.
For the time being, Iachetta said she has no plans to change the way she interprets the code or to discourage students from registering to vote in Charlottesville.
“Until the General Assembly makes [the code] much more specific, I’m going to continue what I’m doing,” she said, “Because I believe it’s the right thing.”
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