North Carolina Republicans have
filed a bill that would penalize parents of college students who vote in the town where they go to college. Students would still be allowed to register to vote in their college town—but if they did, their parents would lose a tax deduction of up to $2,500. The same bill would also force people to have their car registered and be registered to vote in the same place, again targeting college students who are likely to register their cars in their hometowns but vote where they attend college.
House Minority Leader Larry Hall said the bill "would raise taxes on middle-class families who are trying to put their children through college.”
“I refuse to believe the Republican leadership has become so desperate to limit voting for partisan gain that they would be willing to support tax increases to achieve that goal," said Hall, D-Durham. "It is the definition of arrogance to penalize parents with new taxes just because their children want to exercise their right to vote in the community they live in.”
Hall is either incredibly optimistic or being disingenuous there, because of course Republicans are desperate to limit voting for partisan gain. College students lean Democratic in their voting, so Republicans will happily screw their parents to take aim at the student vote in two ways, by making it harder for students to vote on election day and more likely that they'll have to fill out absentee ballots, and by making it harder for advocacy groups and candidates to turn out student voters by organizing on college campuses. There's no question that's what's going on here.
Naturally, the provisions targeting college students are accompanied by a package of your typical other Republican voter suppression tactics like limiting early voting days and prohibiting same-day registration.