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Election Law in the U.S. generally requires a person to live where they intend to vote for at least 30 days before the election.
If I permanently move from Florida to New York 15 days prior to the election, do I lose my right to vote anywhere? I can’t vote in Florida since I no longer live there, and I can’t vote in New York since it is less than 30 days.
Have I lost my suffrage?
Question 2:
If I have a seasonal residence, can I choose to register to vote there, rather than from my permanent residence? (If it will be the only place I so register.)
Have I lost my suffrage?
Possibly. The laws actually vary from state to state. But keep in mind that if you did lose it, you lost it through your choice. No government agency forced you to move on that date. It’s no different than asking if you lost your suffrage because you chose to go on vacation over Election Day after the deadline for asking for an absentee ballot passed.
If I have a seasonal residence, can I choose to register to vote there, rather than from my permanent residence? (If it will be the only place I so register.)
Consult the laws in the relevant states.
The Wolf
Inasmuch as it is now February, do you have actual plans to move or is this just a hypothetical question?
Laziness or ignorance isn’t a loss of suffrage.
My case wasn’t one of ignorance or laziness. My case was one of where a state has a deadline for filing for an absentee ballot (say Oct 1, for example) and then you decide (or get the opportunity) on Oct 15 to go on vacation through mid-November.
In such cases, if the person decides to go, he (in effect) loses his ability to vote.
But again, unless the government is *forcing* you to move right then, I fail to see how you have a case. You could, if you chose, simply move a bit earlier or a bit later (or not move at all) and not have a problem. The government isn’t taking away your right to vote — you are by moving at that particular date.
The Wolf
The rule as it stands now is that a requirement for 30 to 50 day period of residency is ok for reasons of logistics.
Even better, if you read the opinion of the IL supreme court in the recent Rahm case, you will see that many people in IL have no right to vote.
IL requires a residency of 30 days to vote.
Residency is now defined by the IL Supreme court to mean that you currently intend to stay there and intend to always return if you ever leave.
So suppose you move to IL to take a job, but don’t particularly intend to stay there forever, but you live there for 20 years, you still cannot vote in IL.
Now, this is obviously untrue, but it is the current precedent in IL.
Popa,
I just skimmed through the decision and don’t see anything in it that says that that aspect of residency applies to anyone who doesn’t live outside of the state. In other words, you can be a resident if you live in Illinois, or if you leave but intend to stay. Did I miss something?
The term “residency” was defined to mean tradition notions of “domicile”.
Meaning that it is the place you intend to always return to, and you retain it until you establish a new domicile.
Accordingly, the court said that for residency you need (1) physical presence, and (2) intention to stay. And you need to have that status for the residency period.
Thus Rahm Emmanuel was a “resident” of Chicago since he had been (1) physically present, and (2) intended to stay and return; and this status had been true for 1 year.
However, there is only one definition of “residency”, there is no other way to also be a resident.
So that means that to be a “resident”, you must fulfill those two things. So if you are physically present for any amount of time but don’t ever have the state of mind of intending to stay and always return, then you are not a “resident”.
The decision does say that you need to be a permanent resident in order to vote in Illinois, but I can’t imagine anyone reading that as suggesting that that means what you think it implies. It’s just that the English language doesn’t really have a way to differentiate between the Illinois resident who likes living in his local Hilton because he enjoys room service and not being tied down by a lease, and the guy next door who’s been posted to Illinois for a year by his employer but returns to his house, wife and kids in Ohio every weekend.
Well, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t really know. I am just adding up the definitions, and it seems if you adopt the new definition, it creates a requirement of intent to stay- which supplants the old requirement of actually living there (which is the law in all jurisdictions).
For Rahm, that included him, but for many, it will exclude them.
The court’s point was that intent to stay has always been a requirement. The question of how that will be adjudicated remains open, but reading it the way you are would (I think) fail on a Constitutional level pretty easily.
It would definitely fail on a constitutional level, which is how we know the IL legislature never meant it.
And you are correct the court is pretending this is what it always meant. As it happens, they are clearly incorrect since that is not what it means in any other jurisdiction, and it also makes no sense.
Again, I have to admit to having not read the decision too closely, but intent to stay would be an entirely constitutional criteria, provided you defined permanence as meaning “not actively intending to reside in another state.” And that seems like a legitimate interpretation of the word.
FYI
If you Made Aliyah and your last known US address was NY, you are allowed to vote via abstentee Ballots in NY elections
(There have been campaigning in Israel , Particually in 2000 for Jews from Florida who had Made aliyah)
If I can butt in: I believe that traditional notions of domicile require intent to remain as a resident; physical presence may establish domicile for purposes of personal jurisdiction, but it is sufficient rather than necessary. Every person must have one and only one domicile. Intent to remain, is usually determined by common-sense factors – where one receives mail, where one hold bank accounts, where one’s driver’s license is issued, where one is employed/goes to school, ect. One’s first domicile remains his domicile absent positive expression of intent not to remain permanently in that jurisdiction.
It seems to me that its just a simple matter of determining Emanuel’s last known domicile (obviously Illinois/Chicago) and then considering whether he manifested any positive intent NOT to remain a permanent resident of that locale. Whether he owned or rented a residence in Chicago doesn’t seem to me dispositive. If my employer sends me to India for six months to train customer service reps, I would likely end my lease and put my things in storage, but that doesn’t mean I intend to change my place of residence. Why should leaving for a year, or four years, or eight years be any different – its a set period of time that you intend to be away for for a specific purpose, but you do not intend to permanently change your residence.
DISCLAIMER: I haven’t looked at the decision at all, just talking off the top of my head.
RSRH:
Yes, that is how I understand it.
My issue is; does that now mean that you need to establish domicile in IL in order to vote there? Because that is not usually the law.
Zahava,
That’s actually because of a different federal law protecting voting rights of Americans overseas.
Popa,
My point is that I see nothing in the decision saying that. Saying that someone who has established an Illinois domicile is an Illinois resident for the purpose of voting is not the same as saying that one must establish Illinois as their domicile in order to vote there.
I’m not sure. Saying that one who has not changed his Illinois domicile is eligable to run in an Illinois election is not at all the logical equivalent of saying that in order to vote or run in an Illinois election you must be domiciled there. Residence (legally defines, perhaps, as maintaining a residential presence for the majority of the calendar year) could still suffice. I’m not sure what the problem would be if Illinois domicile would be required though . . . you mentioned a possible constitutional issue, could you elaborate?
Right.
So firstly, I am pretty confident that when they said that domicile suffices, it makes it necessary, since the statute only allows one kind of people, “residents”.
The term resident cannot mean to intend to return, or to actually live there.
Also, the court pokes fun at the idea of needing to actually live there, asking how such a standard would be measured. This implies that the court was not comfortable using a “living there” standard for anything.
I’m guessing there could be a 14h amendment problem, since they are discriminating between people living in the state on the basis of whether they have taken up domicile. But then, that is way past my expertise. This whole discussion is past my expertise. I am just adding up the pieces.
RSRH
Once again, not an expert, but there’s no compelling state interest in requiring that a person be domiciled (as opposed to residing) in a state in order to vote there, since domicile is more a legal distinction than a practical one. As such, limiting voting to those domiciled in Illinois would probably violate equal protection.
Can’t you just make an absentee ballot in the state that you originated since you likely lived there for more than 30 days of he since the previous election?
Can’t you just make an absentee ballot in the state that you originated since you likely lived there for more than 30 days of he since the previous election?
The OP indicates he no longer resides in his original jurisdiction, and does live in a new jurisdiction, thus he would seemingly no longer qualify to vote in his original jurisdiction since he now lives in a new one.
mosheemes2: If I remember correctly,the courts do not typically apply strict scrutiny to election laws alleged to deny the right to vote. Voting is not per se a fundamental right. Rather, to the extent that a right to vote exists, it must be applied equally consistent with the 14th Amendment. That being said, I could imagine a very reasonable important (though not compelling) State interest in limiting the franchise to domiciliaries and denying non-domiciled residents the right to vote in State elections. One’s being a resident of a State indicates a far less substantial interest in the affairs of the State than one’s being domiciled in the State, and so, only those that establish domicile can vote. The constitutional problems would also be mitigated by the fact that if a nondomiciliary can’t vote in State A, he can still vote in State B, since he must be domiciled somewhere.
Dunn v. Blumstein (disclosure: found it through Wikipedia) creates strict scrutiny for durational residence laws (on equal protection and right to travel grounds). I’m assuming the same principle would apply to requiring a domicile. I don’t think the state interest passes strict scrutiny, because of the cases that have been brought up here. As for the second point, disenfranchisement is possible, since there’s certainly no requirement for New York to allow people to vote there just because they have not lost their New York domicile.
In NY, you can vote in any jurisdiction in which you have a residence, but you have to choose which one. This has become contentious recently as largely Republican upstate towns have been trying to disenfranchise largely Democratic vacationers.
CT has a more lenient statute — you can vote in town elections in any and all towns in which you own property as long as you are a US Citizen. Nonresident property owners often vote down school and town budgets.
disclaimer: explained to me by a low level BOE official who may or may not have been competent.
Under New York State election law, the requirement is primary residency. That phrase includes homeless, but excludes people with seasonal residences. Nobody knows what it would mean for Emmanuel, considering that the decision was political anyway and who knows whether he could have swung it in NY.
chaliehall: In NY, you can vote in any jurisdiction in which you have a residence, but you have to choose which one. This has become contentious recently as largely Republican upstate towns have been trying to disenfranchise largely Democratic vacationers.
Similarly, in Sullivan County some local politicos and the local Board of Elections have been disenfranchising summer residents who wished to vote there, instead of in their NYC residence. Like you’ve stated, New York state court precedence allows any New Yorker to vote in any jurisdiction in which he has a residence, including seasonal. (As long as that is his only voter registration.)
ItcheSrulik: Under New York State election law, the requirement is primary residency. That phrase includes homeless, but excludes people with seasonal residences.
Actually the law as written does state primary residency as a requirement. But the NY courts have effectively struck this provision down, and allow seasonal residents to vote there (if they elect to only register there). The Board of Elections in Albany will confirm you can register anywhere you have (an even seasonal) residence.
wow. your really concerned about your vote. I guess your from the school of thought that “every vote counts”
When Mitt Romney ran for Governor of Massachusetts in 2002, the Democratic party brought a similar suit challenging his residency. Mr. Romney had been living in Utah for several years, organizing and steering the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The Democratic party tried to convince the court that Romney was not a Mass. resident, since he had lived most of the previous three years in Utah, due to his job.
The court ultimately found in favor of Mr. Romney.
The Romneys maintain their residence in Massachusetts during his period of absence.
RE: Mitt Romney residency issue.
According to wikipedia, that case was decided based on the concepts of residency and domicile, with Romney arguing for the residency concept to be applied, since a person can have multiple residencies.
This accords with my view.
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