The Hornet Tribune

Issue date: 8/25/07 Section: Horizons

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The controversy surrounding the upcoming municipal elections has become more and more interesting as it continues to unfold.

The saga began with federal officials allowing the city of Montgomery to move the date of the elections from Oct. 2 to Aug. 28 to allow military personnel the time to comply with a 42-day time period required by law to return mail-in ballots if a run-off were needed.

Shortly after the ordinance to change the date was approved, the ruling immediately came under fire by Alabama Democratic Conference Chairman Joe L. Reed who also happens to be a member of the Alabama State University Board of Trustees.

Reed brought indictments against the city of Montgomery claiming that they were breaching the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that protects the right of every voter to cast a ballot. Reed also claimed that by the city of Montgomery moving the date of the elections to Aug 28, it would disenfranchise students who attend ASU.

The city of Montgomery has a statute that allows citizens to vote in a municipal election if they are registered within 10 days of an election and must be a resident for 30 days.

Reed alleges that an election on that date would not give ASU students adequate time to participate in the elections.

However, ASU students are not the only students who are affected by the change in the election date. Troy State Montgomery, Faulkner University, Huntingdon College, and Auburn Montgomery also have students from every ethnicity that will be affected by the rescheduling of the initial election date, therefore, the issue of "disenfranchisement" affects all city colleges and universities.

In July, SGA President-elect Duncan Kirkwood held a rally in the Shuttlesworth Dining Hall in which he urged students to fight for their right to vote in the upcoming municipal elections.

Kirkwood was quoted as saying that the rescheduling of the municipal election was an "injustice and an attempt to strip ASU students of their voting rights."

I believe these allegations were ludicrous.

While Kirkwood is accurate in the fact that an election held in August instead of October would disenfranchise students who would like to participate, but cannot because of the 30 day residency, I do not believe that city officials were attempting to disenfranchise just "ASU students" when they came up with this idea.

Continued...

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