  I read an article in urlLink Rolling Stone yesterday, and it just added to my outrage over this country's administration, not to mention outrage over just how easily this administration is trying to make it for themselves to get re-elected. The article is urlLink Mock the Vote: College students are discouraged from voting by local election boards , and the title alone probably clues you into why it pissed me off. I was a college student during the last election, and luckily, I lived off campus, so registering to vote was never a problem for me. Some of my residence hall friends, on the other hand, got denied registration because the election boards don't recognize dormitories as places of residence. Now, I'm no genius, but when someone spends time in a 12x12 non-descript box that doesn't have bars on the front of it for 8-9 months of the year, I'd say they live there. It's their place of residence. The IRS certainly thinks so, because that's the location for which you'll be paying taxes. The US Postal Service thinks it is, because they'll send your mail to you at that location. The United States Bureau of the Census (for which I used to work) agrees that it is, indeed, a permanent address if you choose it to be. In fact, everyone except the local election board (and some of the more obnoxious residents of the community--any community with a college campus has these people) thinks you are an actual resident of the town in which you live (and spend exorbitant amounts of money). "But in recent years, many election officials have been building a variety of hurdles to make it more difficult for students to register and vote.
In May 2002, the city council in Saratoga Springs, New York, shut down a polling place at Skidmore College, forcing students to travel off-campus to vote. That same year, a judge in Arkansas tried to block 1,000 students at Ouachita Baptist University and Henderson State University from casting ballots, ruling that they must vote in their hometowns -- even though the deadline for absentee ballots had already passed. And when students from the University of New Hampshire showed up at the polls on Election Day that year, poll workers handed them a pamphlet warning them that voting locally could affect their financial aid and taxes.
The scare tactic worked: Many students left without voting. " Registration to vote will not affect your financial aid or your taxes. It's a lie that they'll tell you at the voting precinct to scare you off so they don't have to deal with you (who, all too often, they see as an inconvenience, because you take up space in their universe--except they fail to realize that their universe would not be as plush and cozy if you didn't exist, especially if the university population makes up at least half the population of the town in which it exists).
At the very least, at least where state-run universities are concerned, if you are from out of state and now register to vote in your current place of residence (where the university is located), you'll probably get instate tuition after six months. Or not. I don't know how in-state/out-of-state tuition works. But most importantly, guess what.
It's illegal. It was illegal four years ago, and it's illegal now. It's illegal for an election board to refuse you the right to vote if you choose to vote in the precinct in which you live. If this was any other administration that didn't involve George W. Bush and his numerous illegal acts and violations of American's simple rights (look at what he (and the FCC chairman) have done to freedom of expression), I may just look the other way at this story, but because of all the shady business going on, I feel like it's a fucking conspiracy. Bush didn't win the election legally last time, either, but it didn't stop them from swearing him into office, now did it?
On another anti-Bush note, does anyone else ever remember a time where the President of the United States and pretty much everyone in his immediate cabinet were actually forced to testify in front of a Senate or Congressional subcommittee? I don't. Of course, I'm not that old. But doesn't it signal to anyone else that this guy and all of his colleagues are doing something horribly wrong? Iraq is a disaster, and I was one of his biggest supporters when I heard there were WMDs and Saddam was ready, willing and able to use them.
I think the number of soldiers killed in action is above 700 now, and all of it was for a vendetta the man has against a leader of a country that made an attempt on his father's life. Oh, and oil. He wants Iraq's oil. So he can fuck with gas prices a little more. Because paying $2.00 per gallon is just not enough for this president who has so many oil companies in his pocket that he looks like he might just shit oil. I'm so incredibly sick of this president and his lies. I understand the need to fudge the truth just a little bit, but blatant lies to the American people is downright unacceptable. And here's where I show my democratic blood. The republicans have gone on and on about how John Kerry flip flops on issues.
How he can only make a decision if he believes it's the popular opinion, nevermind what he originally felt was what he should do. To me, and to anybody with a couple of brain cells rubbing together, this is what a leader should be. Not so narrow minded that he can't see what isn't working. And when it isn't working, he goes another direction. George W Bush has yet to admit that anything he's done in the last 3 1/2 years has been a mistake. GOOD leaders admit when they've done something that didn't work. They admit when they've made a bad judgment call. They admit when something that seemed so very right at the time actually turned out to be something that just flat out didn't pan out the way he'd hoped. John Kerry admits it. He admits it and he tries to fix the problem, even if he was a part of creating it. He voted for the war, and then he voted in various ways to stop it. He "flip-flops" on issues because they need to be flip-flopped on. Don't forget that while George was lying to the American public, he was also lying to the members of the House and the Senate. George can go ahead and blame the CIA for bad information, but I think it's become pretty clear that the person who messed this up was not a member of the Central Intelligence Agency. The person who messed this up, and continues to mess this up, is the guy who refuses to admit that he acted on an agenda he has had since the early 1990s, when a guy named Saddam messed with a guy named Daddy.
Now, I don't love John Kerry as an alternative to George W Bush, but I will vote for him because I cannot fathom another four years of this man and his colleagues who, for all intents and purposes, have fucked us over from the beginning of their terms in office. At least with Kerry we'll see a little more humility, tact, and, oh, I don't know, maybe he'll honor the United States Constitution. George hasn't done a very good job of that lately. 
