'Young people are the issue': Republicans take aim at student voting

Republicans in states across the country are moving to block young people from voting as part of a concerted strategy advanced by a leading 2020 election denier, according to a report.

New Hampshire Republicans introduced a bill that would have barred college students who pay out-of-state tuition from voting, while a Texas Republican introduced a bill that would ban polling places at colleges and universities. Republicans in Idaho, Virginia and Wisconsin have all pressed measures to keep students away from the polls, reported Rolling Stone.

“Young people are the reason why Biden won in 2020 and Democrats up and down the ballot won in 2022 and 2023,” says Abhi Rahman, national communications director for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

“If Gen Z continues to vote, we’re on the cusp of the most progressive era in our country’s history. Republicans know this as well, and that’s why they’re doing everything they can to stop young people from voting, including the fight for restrictions that we’re seeing play out in states like Wisconsin today.”

GOP operative Cleta Mitchell, who worked behind the scenes to help Donald Trump try to overturn his election loss in 2020, told Republican donors in April they must do more to limit campus voting in swing states like Wisconsin, which led the country in youth turnout in last year's midterm elections.

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“Young people are the issue," said former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who is now president of a conservative youth organization called Young America’s Foundation, in a Fox News appearance. “We’ve got to turn it around if we’re going to win again."

Walker signed a law 12 years ago that made it harder to use a student ID to vote, and the GOP-controlled state legislature is still trying to block students from voting.

“We’ve seen really strong student engagement in our last couple of elections,” said Morgan Hess, executive director of the Wisconsin Assembly Democrats, "and suddenly, we’re seeing new legislation that would prohibit student’s ability to vote.”

In Idaho, which saw the largest increase in voter registrations for 18 and 19-year-olds before the 2022 midterms, a law is set to go into effect Jan. 1 that would prohibit the use of student IDs to register to vote or cast a ballot, but that measure is being challenged in a lawsuit arguing the law amounts to a violation of protections against age discrimination in voting.