RV Voter Rights Challenged in Tennessee
While fulltime RV folks who call Oregon their registration “home” may not have trouble with upcoming elections, that apparently isn’t the case with those from the Volunteer State. According to news from the Good Sam Club, 286 fulltimers who used a mail forwarding service in Cleveland got tossed off the Bradley County voter’s rolls. Why so? Because they’d dared to use the mail forwarding facility’s address as their permanent address.
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The American Civil Liberties Union has stepped into the fray, filing a lawsuit on the part of the disenfranchised RVers, with the claim that these folks have had their constitutional rights abridged by the action of the local county government. The afore mentioned RV club says they’ll file an amicus brief in support of the RVers. This “friend of the court” brief, coming from an outside party, is aimed at assisting the court in making a fair decision. It will be up to the court to determine whether it wishes to admit the brief or deny it.
Whether or not the court will hear–and decide–on the case in time for next fall’s elections remains to be seen.
To listen to the story, check out this audio post on NPR radio.
Photo: CAVE CANEM on flickr.com
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January 10th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
My husband and I ran into a similar problem in Wisconsin. Our drivers licenses were cancelled when our forwarding address was designated as our residence/permanent address. WI law does not allow anyone to vote, have a state issued I.D. card or a drivers license unless they can prove legal residency in a brick and mortar dwelling. We each had to prove we were citizens of the U.S., take the written AND physical driving tests before our licenses were reinstated, plus exorbitant fees!
We quickly, if not gracefully, did what was necessary to get our drivers licenses, and then we hightailed it for Texas which is much more friendly to Full time RVers