TRENTON, NJ – The
Department of the Public Advocate has joined a coalition of voting rights
groups to file papers with the State Board of Education today proposing new
regulations aimed at ramping up voter registration efforts in New Jersey
schools.
Joining
with two national nonpartisan advocacy groups, Project Vote and the Fair
Elections Legal Network, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union of New
Jersey in signing the petition, the Department of the Public Advocate has asked
for rules to ensure all New Jersey high schools distribute voter registration
forms to eligible seniors and educate them about the fundamental importance of
voting. Additionally, the proposal would mandate that schools report to
the state with details about their compliance with the law and the number of
students they helped register.
Under a 1985 law signed by former
Governor Thomas H. Kean, all New Jersey schools – public and private —
were required to offer eligible students voter registration forms and
instruction about the importance of voting Schools’ voter registration
and education efforts must be nonpartisan and cannot include campaigning for
candidates, parties or ballot question.. The law also required the state
education commissioner to adopt implementing regulations, but none have been
issued in the intervening 24 years.
The
lack of regulations has taken its toll. Recent studies have shown that 40 to 60
percent of public schools have not given voter registration forms to seniors
nor taught them about the importance of voting as required by law, as cited in
the groups’ petition.
Further,
older citizens are more likely to vote than New Jersey’s youth. Only 52.5
percent of New Jersey citizens aged 18-24 cast ballots in the 2008 election
compared to 64.1 percent of citizens of all other ages, according to the U.S.
Census.
Many
of the roughly 100,000 New Jersey high school students who turn 18 every year
lack enough knowledge to register properly, and the petition suggests logical
steps for students to bridge that gap. To ensure students understand how they
can register to vote, the proposal would require that:
- Students
have adequate time and information to complete registration forms,
including eligibility requirements to prevent ineligible students from
registering; - Teachers
inform students that their decision to register or not is theirs alone,
and it cannot be rewarded or penalized; and - Schools
offer to collect and transmit the voter registration forms to election
officials, rather than requiring students to submit their paperwork
individually.
The
proposed rules, the petitioners say, will “supply a heretofore missing
mechanism that will ensure that all students receive a meaningful voter
registration opportunity and the voter education materials to which they are legally
entitled.”
ABOUT THE PETITIONERS
The
New Jersey Department of the Public Advocate is
charged with making government more accountable and responsive to the needs of
New Jersey residents. The Public Advocate’s Voting Rights Project seeks to
protect the basic and fundamental right to vote belonging to every U.S.
citizen.
Project
Vote is a national nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that works to empower,
educate, and mobilize low-income, minority, youth and other marginalized and
under-represented voters.
Fair
Elections Legal Network is a national, nonpartisan network of experienced
private and organizational election lawyers who are involved in removing
impediments to voter participation by traditionally under-represented
constituents, including students.
The ACLU of New
Jersey works to defend liberty and individual rights throughout New Jersey.
Among other things, it has issued comprehensive reports on the state of voting
rights and election administration in New Jersey.