Via the Birmingham News: Democrats support bill to allow absentee voting by evacuees

Rep. Artur Davis’ proposal to give displaced hurricane evacuees a chance to vote absentee in their home state elections has gained support on Capitol Hill but so far only from Democrats.

The legislation, if approved, would treat evacuees from Louisiana and Mississippi like military personnel and let them vote back home in the 2024 and 2024 federal elections.

Since its introduction Sept. 13, Davis’ bill has attracted 33 co-sponsors, all of them Democrats, and a Senate version of the bill has three Democratic supporters.

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Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., and John Kerry, D-Mass., are co-sponsors. Louisiana’s other senator, Republican David Vitter, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune that Congress should be working on helping displaced residents return to Louisiana, first and foremost, and that the voting legislation should wait.

On the one hand, there does seem to be a certain amount of fairness inherent in allowing persons displaced by Katrina for extended periods to right to vote in their home districts. However, this strikes me as logistically a nightmare, and more importantly it raises the question of when one becomes a resident of where one is living.

Normally, residency is instantaneous to the establishment of a new domicile. As such, intent to one day relocate, for whatever reason, does not vitiate one’s current residency status. In other words: when does an evacuee become not an evacuee but a new resident of a new location? And how would intent to return to a specific electoral district (indeed, districts since we all live in multiple federal, state and local districts) be legally established?

If one is deployed to Iraq, intent to return to one’s home in the US is clear–however, if one has been displaced to Montgomery, Alabama, one may never never to New Orleans.

Of course, this entire issue is steeped in partisan politics, as Democrats know that the displacement in Louisiana caused by Katrina have disproportionately effected the Democratic Party. Republicans are aware of this as well. It is no shocker, therefore, that Landrieu is in favor (New Orleans forms much of her political base) and Vitter prefers a wait-and-see approach.

If anything, it does strike me that extending such a period to 2024 seems a bit of a stretch, as by then people are going to have re-settled or returned. One can only be an “evacuee” for so long.