Eligible students denied right to vote

On Election Day at the University of Idaho, hundreds of students waited in line for over five hours — some just to be told they didn’t have the correct documentation to vote. The polling location ran out of registration forms three times, compounding wait times and frustration. Some students were still in line at 10:30 p.m.; others gave up and went home.

Meanwhile, at BYU-Idaho, hundreds of students were turned away at the polls due to a law passed last year by the Idaho Legislature.

Students were blamed for not registering early online. But new Idaho laws made online registration difficult or impossible for many students. Most students’ driver’s licenses list their parents’ address, not their current college address, disqualifying them from completing their voter registration online.

In 2023, Idaho’s Legislature passed, laws that removed student IDs as acceptable identification for registering and voting and imposed additional barriers to the process. Students warned legislators of the harm these bills cause to eligible Idaho residents. They passed them anyway.

Ada County Clerk, Trent Tripple confirmed that, due to the new laws, legally eligible voters were denied their constitutional right to vote.

Will elected officials change these harmful laws? Or will they, as some legislators have threatened, try to pass more laws keep legally eligible Idahoans from voting?

ANYA ZUERCHER

ASUI senator

BABE VOTE 

Campus captain

UI student

OLIVIA LUNA

BABE VOTE 

Board member

BSU student