This is Part III in my look at New Hampshire's history of attempting to disenfranchise college student voters. For Part I, which provides essential background information, please click here. You may read Part II here.
"Student Voting Rights Present Challenge for College Communities"
This headline from the February 23, 2001, edition of The Valley News might appear preposterous at first glance. Imagine if this headline were written about any other community. Most people would be up in arms or at the very least confused. After all, the ability to influence the politics of your local community is a bedrock element of American democracy. Why are students any different? That question has driven years of policymaking and dialogue in New Hampshire.
If there is one meta narrative of conservative New Hampshire politics over the last half-century, it's the feverish pursuit to figure out how students are different. The courts settling the question of student eligibility to vote did not stop people from trying to impede access to the ballot and it did not stop some people from perceiving students as "outsiders" who are trying to change the culture of their college towns. As an April 17, 2002, article in The Valley News noted, Republicans said that students should not be allowed to vote because their "votes can affect local elections." Again, is that not the point of democracy?
The narrative was clear, despite students spending money in local communities, they were not a part of that community. Again, a preposterous claim. How can you live somewhere for four years and not be a member of that community?
The $10 Residency Tax: A Financial Barrier to the Ballot
In the early 1990s, several towns, including Hanover, home to Dartmouth College, had a $10 “residency tax” on newly arrived residents. In my research, I couldn't find it when it actually began. Though technically framed as a general municipal tax, it functioned as a de facto poll tax, falling heavily on college students who attempted to vote in local elections.
The issue came to a head during the 1992 election, when Dartmouth students were among those threatened with being denied the right to vote unless they paid the $10 fee. The Valley News and The Dartmouth reported on multiple incidents in which students were told at the polls that they had to provide proof of payment or else their ballots would be challenged or discarded.
The move sparked outrage. Legal advocates, students, and civil liberties groups pointed out the obvious: this was a modern poll tax, selectively applied in a way that targeted transient, often younger voters who might lean progressive. The requirement was not uniformly enforced across all towns, nor across all residents. But in Hanover, the message was clear, students needed to pay to participate.
Public pressure mounted and by 1993, the Hanover Selectboard voted to abolish the $10 tax. But the damage had been done. The episode reinforced the idea that students, even when legally eligible to vote, were second-class citizens in the eyes of some local officials.
Students as “Outsiders”
The cultural narrative didn’t end with the repeal. It evolved. As an April 17, 2002 article in The Valley News recounted, some Republican leaders continued to argue that college students shouldn’t be allowed to vote because their “votes can affect local elections.”
Again, isn’t that the point?
This recurring claim that students shouldn’t vote because they might change outcomes underscores the deeper issue: students were (and often still are) seen as outsiders, regardless of how long they live, work, or participate in local life. Even students who spend four years in a community, longer than many military deployments or job assignments, are treated as though their presence is fleeting and their political preferences invalid.
It’s a paradox that continues to shape policy: students contribute economically, socially, and even civically, but they are often excluded from the political sphere because of who they are, not where they live.
From Cultural Resistance to Policy Pushback
The battles of the early 2000s reflected this tension. In towns like Durham and Keene, officials raised concerns about “student blocs” skewing town meetings or dominating turnout in close elections. In Hanover, Dartmouth students increasingly participated in local races, even running for office, prompting new calls to review voter rolls or tighten eligibility standards.
These efforts rarely resulted in legislation at the time, but they shaped the political discourse. They planted seeds for later laws that would impose document-heavy voter ID requirements, burdensome domicile definitions, and financial consequences for registering to vote in one’s college town.
The rhetorical groundwork was already laid, if students are different, and if their votes “threaten” the balance of local politics, then the state has a vested interest in managing their access to the ballot.
The Voter ID Fight: 2011 and the “Feelings” Comment
By the early 2010s, efforts to discourage student voting had become more formalized. In 2012, the Republican-led legislature passed a voter ID law, overcoming Governor John Lynch's veto, requiring voters to present photo identification at the polls. Though framed as a measure to prevent fraud, the real intent behind the law became clear when House Speaker William O’Brien infamously said in a public forum that college students “just vote their feelings,” and that they "don't have life experience and they just vote their feelings and they’re taking away the townspeople’s vote.” That statement, widely reported at the time, was more than a gaffe, it revealed the underlying sentiment that student voters were not just inconvenient, but illegitimate.
I was a college student in New Hampshire when this debate was on-going. It started after the New Hampshire Republicans took control of the state legislature in the 2010 elections. Governor Lynch was the lone Democrat with any kind of real power in New Hampshire, and he was left to fight a tidal wave of bad Republican ideas.
For me, this was personal.
I was interning for Governor Lynch on the day of the 2010 midterm elections. It was a somber feeling in the office, and we knew that change was on the horizon. I did not however expect to be told by New Hampshire Republican state leaders, many of whom I had met throughout the course of my internship, that people like me were not welcome to participate in New Hampshire's political discourse.
Despite interning in state government and participating in multiple political campaigns, my level of civic participation was not deemed, by some, to be enough to be allowed to participate in New Hampshire's state governance.
Overcoming Governor Lynch's veto did require a student-friendly compromise: College IDs issued by college and universities in New Hampshire would be accepted. This concession kept the bill alive, but it didn’t undo the chilling effect the law had already created. These efforts sent a clear message: you are not welcome at the ballot box.
The Slow Burn of Suppression
Even without new laws on the books, the cultural resistance to student voting has a chilling effect. When voters are repeatedly told they don’t belong when they face extra questions at the polls, or hear that their ballots might be challenged, or are warned that they could owe fees or taxes — some will walk away.
That’s the real power of these policies. They do not need to block all student voters to be effective. They just need to discourage enough of them.
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Look Ahead!
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In Part IV, we’ll see how these cultural attitudes were codified into law during the Sununu administration.
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In Part V, we’ll examine how these policies continue to evolve, including 2025 legislation targeting student ID usage, and how young people are organizing to protect and expand their rights.
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