EDITORIAL: Can't exclude or excuse student voters

Last Modified: Wednesday, October 16, 2013 at 7:52 p.m.

Election contests are not uncommon but successful election contests are rare. That said, incumbent Tuscaloosa City Board of Education member Kelly Horwitz has every reason to pursue a challenge in the race she presumably lost in the Aug. 27 municipal election.

Horwitz's lawyers are challenging 397 votes out of 745 cast in the election. The margin of victory for challenger Cason Kirby was 87 votes, so she only needs to prove that 88 votes cast for Kirby were fraudulent while having none stricken from her total.

As any candidate who has challenged an election can tell Horwitz, proving that votes were fraudulent is more difficult than it sounds. Even when something sounds fishy, that doesn't mean it's illegal or that the vote was cast fraudulently.

According to court documents, Horwitz claims a large number of voters were encouraged to vote with the promise that proof that they voted — an “I voted” sticker like they pass out at the polls — could be exchanged for a wrist band that would entitle them to free drinks at two local establishments. That would be a bribe, she says, and bribing voters is a crime.

Her other major claim is that large numbers of voters didn't meet the residency requirements to vote in the election. Shortly before the election, for example, evidence emerged that 10 people were registered to vote at the same residence. Yet, they could not be found when the residence was checked.

The claims are given credence by social media posts offering rewards for voting and promoting the candidacies of Kirby and Lee Garrison, the former city councilman who was elected chairman of the Board of Education. The troublesome activity has been linked to the University of Alabama campus political organization known as “The Machine,” which has allegedly used UA fraternities and sororities to dominate student politics.

At times, the Machine's antics on campus have captured local, state and national news media attention. Even federal law enforcement became embroiled in an early 1980s campus election. The UA administration at one time suspended the Student Government Association because of suspected Machine activity. But it has largely been dismissed as students playing at politics and not taken seriously.

City elections might not be big-time, but they are still serious business. No one is going to shrug it off as child's play.

Kirby's attorneys counter that Horwitz is trying to disenfranchise students as a class of voters. Indeed, some of her supporters have grumbled about students sticking their nose into local matters where they have no business.

The problem is that without students, there virtually is no District 4. The few hundred non-student residents can't expect to have a district unto themselves when every other city voting district has about 13,000 residents. Simply put, if you're going to count students as residents, you can't deny them the right to vote.

If students' votes are stricken, it should be because they voted illegally, not because they are students.


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