Student voters at UA

05:08 PM MST on Friday, September 24, 2004

Natalie Tejeda / Fox 11 News

Natalie Tejeda reports

An update now on a student voter registration story we first brought you three weeks ago. It had to do with out of state University of Arizona students registering to vote in Pima County.

Thursday afternoon, several student organizations protested our station and local election officials to get the word out that students can in fact vote, despite what some say.

Not only are Kelly Kraus and Juliana Zuccaro leading the charge in this protest, they've also done their homework on just who can register to vote here in Tucson.

“The United States Supreme Court has expressly ruled that college communities must allow students to register to vote,” said Kraus at a September 9th press conference.

We first approached them three weeks ago at a voter registration drive on the UofA campus. They weren't happy when we told them what Chris Roads at the Pima County Registrar of Voters was telling us about student voters.

“When it comes to students at the University, if they're only here to attend school and their intention is to immediately return to where they came from when schools over, then they not residents of the state of Arizona for voting purposes and they cannot vote here,” claimed Roads in an August 31st interview.

Now despite a 1979 Supreme Court ruling, Arizona state and local officials can't agree on whether students count as residents.

“The Secretary of State office continues to put out erroneous information even to this day,” says Katherine Spillar of the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Since our story first aired on August 31st, both Chris Roads and Ann Rodriguez have been unavailable for an on camera interview.

We spoke with Chris Roads a few days after our story aired and he still stood by everything he told us. But a few days ago Ann Rodriguez released a statement which contradicts that.

It says any individual currently residing in Arizona, who intends to remain for a period of time is eligible to register in Arizona and vote. If you are a U.S. citizen, at least 18 years of age....and you live in Pima County 29 days prior to the general election you are eligible to register to vote.

There was no retraction of what Chris Roads initially told us in the statement, only the claim that we misinterpreted his comments.

So we re-played his comments in full and they seemed very clear. But now, his boss says if you're a U-of-A student, feel free to register to vote.

The last day to register in Arizona for the general election is October 4th.

For more Arizona news, visit www.azstarnet.com or www.azfamily.com.

©The Arizona Daily Star, 2004