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On her way home from a meeting Thursday, Sept 25, a PDA WV member heard an ad (or public service announcement) from West Virginia Sec. of State Betty Ireland regarding voting options for college students.
She presented the case as college students having three options to vote in this election:
1. Go home and vote early.
2. Vote by absentee ballot.
3. Go home and vote on election day.
According to the SoS, these are the only ways in which college students in WV can vote. Except she left out a very important fourth option: register and vote where you go to college.
A call to the SoS office got Mrs. PDAWV to someone named Jason Williams who said that Ms. Ireland's statements were factual as they pertained to the matter at hand. Mr. Williams also stated that though college students can legally register and vote at their college "We can't have college students running around registering to vote willy-nilly where they may not have a permanent address."
Classy.
UPDATE 1: Since this was posted, WSAZ-TV ran a story on various ways college students are being treated as voters in this election cycle. It was a very informative story about false information from several fronts.
When that story was finished, Mrs. PDAWV emailed Tim Irr to report the radio ad from the WV Secretary of State. WSAZ responded and started looking into the story. Since then it has been discovered that there is also a television spot by Sec. Ireland with the same (mis)information. WSAZ contacted their media partner at WCHS (TV and radio) to get a copy of the ad. WCHS contacted the Sec. of State's office and they refused to allow the ad to be released.
The WV Sec. of State is deliberately trying to mislead college students regarding their voting options in an effort to depress the youth vote. Look for an online petition drive from PDWV before the end of the day regarding this issue.
UPDATE 2: Sec. of State Ireland seems to have pulled this ad and replaced it with one that does not speak specifically to college students. It now offers the three ways in which anyone can vote and does not mention college students at all.
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