Georgia Southern is located in the town of Statesboro, GA, which is a small town in, surprisingly enough, South Georgia . The only thing in the town is Georgia Southern, businesses there because of Georgia southern, and old southern whites apparently.
From the AJC:
Four residents have challenged more than 900 students' right to vote in Statesboro, saying they haven't lived in the city long enough to make decisions about how things should be run in Statesboro, a city of 25,000 people — roughly 14,000 of them students — about 200 miles southeast of Atlanta.
And later on,
Waters and other residents met Thursday with members of the Student Government Association, where SGA President Jon Simpson asked them to drop the challenge. Even if the students are listening to the wrong influences, he said, they should still have their right to vote.
Resident Ray Fry disagreed.
At Thursday's meeting, he said students who have registered to vote in the city election care about just a few issues that affect them while they're in town.
"This city isn't run on three topics — alcohol, towing and front-yard parking," a frustrated Fry said.
So, to conclude, apparently the old time citizens of Stateboro no longer that voting rights should be applied for college students, because they just don't see the big picture because they are poor little naive students being led astray by the evils of alcohol.
I've really never been more insulted. This is a throwback to the "good old days" of the 50s where no one but the descendants of plantation owners were allowed to vote. Its folk like this that give south Georgia a bad name - not college students trying to do their civic duty. We are taught in high school t is our duty to go and vote, and look what happens when we try to exercise it.
The local Statesboro paper, the Statesboro Hearld, has it right.
From Nov. 4th's editorial -"Our Views: We encourage all registered voters to vote Tuesday"
We acknowledge the members of the group believe they are doing the right thing. But for all their protestations about not wanting to deny students their right to vote, their actions demonstrate clearly that’s precisely what they want. If they pursue the challenges, Statesboro may see civil rights groups descending on our town and that would be bad for all city and county residents.
There are plenty of issues in Statesboro besides alcohol that citizens should be concerned with – economic development, possible future annexation and traffic to name three. But come Tuesday, if a registered college student wants to vote for a candidate who wants to completely revamp the alcohol ordinance or if a 35-year city resident wants to vote for a candidate who doesn’t, we urge them to come to the polls.
Fewer and fewer people – as a percentage of population in our nation, our state, our county and our town – care to take advantage of the right to vote. While we all are free to disagree with someone’s motivation to vote, everyone should be encouraged to vote. On Tuesday, we urge all registered voters in Statesboro City Council Districts 2, 3 and 5 to vote.
And also from the Stateboro Hearld, "Our Views: Citizens group should withdraw challenges to voter registrations"
While we respect the right of the four citizens to present their complaints as allowed by law, we think the unprecedented protesting of the fundamental right to vote of so many people is reckless. We believe the students do have a right to vote for whatever reason they choose. Why somebody registers or why he or she votes must never be a reason to deny their franchise.
Well said. Nice to know some people do have common sense down there. And please spread the word - something needs to be done, especially if they toss those student ballots.
Cross posted at Spirituality and Sunflowers