Tom Smith thinks students are being “bamboozled” by voter registration misinformation circulated by AU student groups, including the A Voice 4 U campaign.
Smith, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner of single member district 3D 02, and six other ANC 3D 02 residents filed a petition Friday with the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics asking the agency to issue a “declaratory statement” to the student groups, alleging misconduct.
Smith said the petition was not his idea, and he signed the petition as a D.C. resident, not in his ANC capacity.
“There are potentially serious consequences that the [BOEE] should explore through a hearing,” the petition says. “Inducing registration in D.C. under false pretenses touches on interfering with the voter registration process.”
The petitioners allege that AU student groups have issued misleading voter registration information to students about their ability to register to vote in D.C. and then change their registration back to their home states.
Students are basically being told they can change their domicile like you would change your shoes, Smith said.
“The legal reality is that many states almost certainly will NOT allow students who have registered in D.C. to later register in such jurisdictions unless the students actually have moved there,” the petition states.
Adam Daniel-Wayman, AV4U assistant campaign manager, said the petition’s argument will not hold together and focuses more on student restrictions than student rights.
The petition is misinforming the students more than anything AV4U has put out, he said.
The campaign isn’t hiding anything, said Sam Miller, the director of Eagle Communications, the public relations firm working with AV4U.
“Students shouldn’t be afraid to get involved in this process,” Miller said.
Daniel-Wayman said the campaign has always been upfront about students changing their registration back after the election and it will help students to do so. He said some states may require more work than others, but it is possible.
“We’ve been doing this by the book,” he said.
Smith said his concern lies with protecting the integrity of the District’s laws.
“All my life, from the time I was about 12 years old, I was a political activist,” he said. “I really do believe that politics is a way to make the world a better place.”
Smith said he supports students changing their residency and voter registration to D.C., but not just to affect the results of a single election.
“Whether it gets addressed or not by the Board of Elections, it’s a long-term problem,” he said. “The right to vote is really a sacred thing.”
Smith said what AV4U is saying about a schism between AU and the ANC is not true — particularly with the role of the ANC’s in AU’s Campus Plan.
The 10-year facilities Campus Plan, in which AU is proposing to build an East Campus on the Nebraska Parking Lot, must be approved by D.C.’s Zoning Commission, which gives “great weight” to ANC recommendations and reports.
“The ANC has absolutely no binding authority. They make no decisions that effect American University,” Smith said. “Seeing all this stuff in print just makes your head spin.”
Smith also said “for whatever reason” students have not tried very hard to get a seat on the ANC.
“Maybe they would know something more about what an ANC does if they had come to an ANC meeting,” he said.
Sami Green, the Student Government director of community relations, has tried to get on the ballot for election to the ANC eight times in the past two years. Each time, she had problems with successfully issuing a petition to the BOEE to get her name on the ballot due to technical and other issues.
Green has never attended an ANC 3D meeting. She said she spent her time attending AU’s Neighborhood Liaison Meetings instead, at the advice of neighbors she was working with.
Smith said Green made efforts, but he thinks there is no reason she should not have gotten a seat. However, he felt she did not follow through on the advice she was given.
Green said Smith has never made an effort to represent students and believes his signature on the petition to BOEE reflected that.
Smith said it is because of his efforts that there is a Capital Bikeshare rack on Massachusetts Avenue and Ward Circle traffic patterns are being investigated.
Smith added that the campaign is having a “very significant” impact on the mindset of the community with long-term consequences, no matter the results of the election.
“This is not a poli-sci. class,” he said.
sdazio@theeagleonline.com
