Part II - ACLU Article on Student Voters in NH Sets the Standard for Stupid - Granite Grok

Part II – ACLU Article on Student Voters in NH Sets the Standard for Stupid

Licenses and IDsFor reasons we won’t go into today ruling class institutions in New Hampshire like vote fraud. They like it so much that nary a one, in their ambling defense of dirty elections, wonders why out-of-state students can’t use an absentee ballot to vote like any typical person temporarily displaced from the address the IRS will come looking if they commit tax fraud.

One of those “institutions” is the NH-ACLU. They think they know better and a few weeks back one of their lawyers made a laughable defense for vote fraud in an article titled, ‘Residence’ voting bill has an economic impact.

Ed took a wack at the legal stupidity last week. This week I’m here to poke some more holes in their defense.

The entire point of the article is the author’s concern that legislation to tighten up election law (HB372) will keep out of state college students from coming to New Hampshire. Students that can already legally vote absentee from anywhere in the world are more put off by the economics of HB372–assuming they’ve even heard of it outside the axe-grinding circles of the professional left–than the enormous cost to attend a school like UNH?

These are students that our universities need for tuition purposes and future graduates that our businesses desperately need to fill the litany of open jobs in the state. Yet legislators will make it increasingly easy for soon-to-be college students to choose schools in Vermont or Maine, rather than New Hampshire if they pass HB 372.

The author does note the high cost of out-of-state tuition in New Hampshire but only to bemoan the legislature adding to that the cost of obtaining a drivers license. Meanwhile, an out-of-state student choosing Maine over New Hampshire could pay for 77 first time New Hampshire driver’s licenses every year with their savings.

UNH also has the distinction of graduating students with more student debt than anywhere else in the country.

There are other economic concerns left out of the discussion.

Out-of-state students, paying out-of-state tuition voting on local budgets, spending articles, and for representatives who will plan and pass budgets has a significant economic impact on New Hampshire. Given the tendency for them to vote for Democrat, (if they were voting Republican we wouldn’t be having this argument it would be a felony) their influence will cost property and business owners millions annually in higher taxes to pay for ever-expanding budgets.

Diverting private wealth to government disincentivizes start-ups, expansions, new hires, wage-growth, and benefits. If you want to make an argument for attracting young workers fresh from college, promoting policies that expand government at their expense is not a particularly bright idea.

While you are at it, why not print out some nice invitations that say, “Thanks for growing New Hampshire government. How can we convince you to stay and help pay for it?”

Lastly, let’s say the out-of-state tuition-paying college student with all that student debt decides to live and work here. They are going to have to get a New Hampshire driver’s license. Everything else being equal wouldn’t having a New Hampshire drivers license already be more of an incentive to stay?

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