MYTH: "You can't register where you go to school. You must vote absentee from your home address".
REALITY: You are legally allowed to vote wherever you are domiciled. What that means is that if you consider the town where you go to school to be your home, you can register to vote from that address.
MYTH: "You can't register to vote if you live in a dorm".
REALITY: Any student living in a dorm is entitled to the same rights as any other student. To imply otherwise is illegal. If you receive mail in a Post Office box you can sign an affidavit (or, in some cases, get a letter from your college's Residential Life office) asserting that you live at your dorm address.
MYTH: "You might lose your financial aid if you change where you are registered to vote".
REALITY: Except for rare cases, your voter registration does not affect your eligibility for financial aid.
- Federal grants and loans are not affected by your voter registration.
- In nine of the eleven states that allow education grants to be used in at least one other state, voter registration is not a factor in determining eligibility.
- In the two states (Virginia and Delaware) that do consider voter registration when determining residence for the purposes of financial aid, it is only one factor among many that are considered.
- There are many private sources of financial aid, all with different qualifications. However, none of the top 20 private providers of student loans consider where a student registers to vote when awarding a loan.
MYTH: "You can lose your health insurance if you register to vote where you go to school".
REALITY: School-based insurance will not be affected by voter registration. If you are on your parents' health insurance you will not lose coverage if you register to vote where you go to school, as long as you continue to meet the criteria of your insurance provider.
MYTH: "If you register to vote at school, your parents cannot claim you as a dependent for tax purposes.
REALITY: The IRS does not consider a dependent's residency for tax purposes.
From the 2013 version of the site. Details, prices and links may be out of date, so check them against your own campus policies.