By SUSAN M. COVER
Staff Writer Thursday, February 15, 2007

Doug Lewis, executive director of the Elections Center in Houston, said that similar laws have been overturned by the courts for nearly half a century. His group is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization representing election administrators.

"The federal courts have ruled consistently for almost 50 years that voting residency is a state of mind," he said.

In other words, if college students want to use dormitory addresses to register to vote, the state can't stop them.

"The Legislature can try it all it wants to, but the first time someone files a federal suit they'll have to undo it," he said. "I don't think they ought to waste that much time trying to fiddle with it."

The bill, sponsored by Rep. Gary Knight, R-Livermore Falls, is pending before the Legislature's Legal and Veterans Affairs Committee. A scheduled vote on the bill was delayed Wednesday because of snow.

Two weeks ago, many college students and voting rights advocates packed a Statehouse hearing room to oppose Knight's bill. There were some who spoke in favor, mainly because they didn't feel college students should have a say in local and state elections.

Knight said Wednesday that he's heard from many people in the community who support his bill. He believes college students should vote absentee in their hometowns.

A freshman Republican with little or no Democratic support for his bill, he acknowledges that it has no chance of becoming law. "That's an aspect I'm going to have to learn to live with," he said. "We don't necessarily do what's correct, we do what's expedient."

Last week, the committee discussed the bill, with Democrats moving to reject it. However, Republican committee members had questions about legal precedent at the federal and state level and asked Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap to explain how other states treat college students.

Dunlap said he's still reviewing the information provided to him by 20 states, which have different residency requirements for voting. But they don't appear to differentiate between college students and other residents, he said.

"When it comes to students, if you live in a dorm, you can vote," he said.

Groups such as the National Conference of State Legislatures, electionline.org and Young Voter Strategies at George Washington University all said this week they weren't aware of any other states that restricted college student voting in the way in which Knight proposes to do it in Maine.

Rep. Abigail Holman, R-Fayette, is one of the committee members who posed several questions about the bill at a work session last week. An attorney, she's in the process of reading case law on the subject and said she has not made up her mind about the bill.

The issue raises a question for her about whether students who vote in Maine -- and presumably become residents -- should be eligible for in-state tuition.

"I'm not going to vote on something until I've researched it thoroughly," she said. "I'm not prepared to vote until the questions are answered for me."

Those who oppose the bill don't believe there's any ambiguity.

The bill, as proposed, would not pass federal constitutional muster, said Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union.

"We think it's a clear violation of the constitution in multiple ways," she said. "We think it's unconstitutional, unfair and it contravenes the principle that every citizen in the U.S. be given the right to vote."

Susan Cover -- 623-1056

scover@centralmaine.com