Abstract

Fox Hunts Student Voters

The article looks at student voter registration intimidation in Arizona in 2004. Juliana Zuccaro and Kelly Kraus thought they were exercising their civic rights and responsibilities on August 31 when, as officers of the Network of Feminist Student Activists at the University of Arizona, they helped set up a voter-registration drive on the university mall. When Kelly asserted that Arizona law requires only that those registering be resident in the state twenty-nine days before the election, Natalie Tejeda, a Fox news reporter, insisted it was illegal to register students. What many do not realize is that legally, students from out of state are not eligible to vote in Arizona because they are considered temporary residents. If they are only here to attend school and their intention is to immediately return to where they came from when school is over then they are not residents of the state of Arizona for voting purposes and they cannot register to vote here. Despite a 1979 Supreme Court ruling affirming their right to vote where they attend school, students often encounter difficulties when they try to exercise that right. Fox has not only failed to correct its original report; it has continued to suggest on the air that out-of-state students who register in Arizona are breaking the law and could end up in big trouble.