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Voter Groups Go to Court to Fight for Voting Rights of Private, Charter, and Public School Students |
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October 27, 2010
TRENTON – The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, Project Vote and the Fair Elections Legal Network today submitted a brief seeking to ensure that the Department of Education fulfill a twenty-five-year old mandate to protect the voting rights of private, charter, and public school students, which the DOE has thus-far failed to meet
“It is appalling that 25 years after the High School Voter Registration Law was issued, there are still no regulations on the books protecting the rights of private and charter school students under the law, and only the most minimal of protections for district public school students,” said Ed Barocas, the ACLU-NJ legal director. In 1985, New Jersey passed a law giving all eligible high school seniors the right to receive a voter registration form and voter education as they neared adulthood. The law required the DOE to pass regulations to effectuate the law and ensure compliance. But the DOE never did. And even when the DOE earlier this year created a minimal and insufficient compliance requirement for public schools, it still wholly ignored the rights of students at private and charter schools.
In June of this year, the DOE turned down the voting rights groups’ formal request to tighten the oversight requirements. The groups therefore took state educators to court. This appeal of the DOE decision is based on a section of the voter law that says the commissioner of education “shall adopt” regulations on the voting law.
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New Video Highlights Collaboration Between Project Vote and League of Women Voters to Engage High School Students in Democratic
Project
Vote has been partnering with the League of Women Voters to help register
eligible high school students in five states (Arizona, California, Florida,
Texas, and Virginia). LWV volunteers have been going into high schools with
high populations of minority students to engage students in the democratic process
through a combination of classroom and assembly methods.
In this
video, volunteer Raymundo Estrada of Houston TX talks about his
experience with the project.
“Not many other people are talking to
young adults about voting and what it means to them and their country,” says
LWV volunteer Raymundo Estrada in the video. “It feels good to be that
person in their lives.”
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 The 2008 electorate was the most diverse in
history, thanks to a surge in voting by Americans of color, particularly young
Americans. Yet, almost two years later, the political hopes and policy
preferences of these voters, what some call the Rising American Electorate,
have been drowned out by the demands of white, affluent Americans organized
under the Tea Party banner.
To take a step towards the correcting this skewed environment,
Project Vote is pleased to release What
Happened to Hope and Change: A Poll of 2008 Voters.
The report, by Project Vote research director Lori Minnite,
provides new information on attitudes toward government and government spending
by American voters. The telephone poll was conducted in July and August and includes
responses from 1,947 Americans who cast ballots in 2008, with special samples
drawn of black voters, low-income voters, and voters under the age of 30. This allowed Project Vote to make reliable
comparisons among these three groups, self-identified Tea Party sympathizers,
and all 2008 voters.
Understanding the expectations and
preferences of the 2008 electorate is critical because, if the past is a guide,
9 out of 10 2010 voters will have cast a ballot in 2008.
To download the report, click here.
To watch a video about the new report click here.
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