Fox News intimidates students from registering to vote at the University of Arizona.
Be on the lookout for this happening in your area. The following was sent out by a faculty member at the University of Arizona.
Please recommend this diary.
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Please forward. This story matters.
Yesterday, August 31, students in the Women's Studies honorary society at the University of Arizona--in conjunction with the Feminist Majority Foundation--were engaging in a bit of civic participation on the UA lawn: registering voters. The called it "Suffrage 2004." In registering voters, they were engaging in an activity in common with the Young Republicans, the Young Democrats, and student government here in recent weeks. But this time it was different. The local Fox News affiliate pulled up and, cameras rolling, accused feminist students of engaging in felony voter fraud. The reporters claimed that Arizona law prohibits students from out of state from registering here.
Our students were formidable. They, of course, had consulted with the local registrar of voters on the law before they picked up voter registration forms, and insisted that state law requires only that someone live in Arizona for 29 days before the election. They called
the Secretary of State's office, our local state rep, Raul Grijalva, the Feminist Majority Foundation, and others. The Secretary of State's office, shamefully, refused to back them up.
They're a little scared they really will be charged with a felony. I find this hard to imagine [but then I find this whole thing hard to imagine], as the law really is on their side--the voter registration law says clearly that you only have to reside here for 29 days before the election. There's even a Supreme Court decision that says students have the right to vote where they live (although, and this may be apocryphal, one of our students reported that when she raised that with the Secretary of State's office, she was told--but that's the Supreme Court. That doesn't apply here. This is Arizona.) Anyway, they have lots of lawyers working for them now.
But last night, a piece ran on the local Fox affiliate that was quite intimidating--it sounded like students would be arrested if they voted. Kelly Krauss, UA WS student, held the line in the piece that this wasn't true, but was contradicted by the secretary of state's office. (I'm trying to get someone to upload the videotape, and can make copies on request. Interestingly, Fox News/Channel 11
doesn't have the story archived on their web site.)
So this is scary as hell. The NAACP/People for the American Way Report that came out last month argues that intimidating people out of their voting rights is a Republican Party strategy. So I'm trying to understand what happened, and my mind reels. A memo? From people in the Republican Party to Fox News stations in swing states like Arizona? Telling them to halt voter registration drives by the Feminist Majority Foundation? I can't even imagine.
