Time magazine has said that this is the Year of the Youth Vote. That is, if you’re from anywhere except Virginia. There you’re pretty much screwed out of your Constitutional rights.
 

You see, the youth vote in Virginia is particularly important since it is a swing state full of young coeds looking to make their voice heard. State statistics reveal that 42 percent of Virginia’s more than 284,100 new registrants are college-aged and 50,000 new voters in Virginia are 18-years-old.

Of that number, the Daily Kos estimates that 50 percent of the college-aged voters are actually in college. Too bad colleges in the state are doing their damndest to keep students away from the polls:

Students in Radford University recently organized to protest the actions of Radford registrar Tracy Howard, who was automatically denying all registrations from students who listed a campus address as their residence:

"If they give me only a dorm address," [Howard] said, "they will be sent something called a pending denial. It says that you need to have a street address, permanent address, in order to register to vote."

The episode brought back memories of Virginia Tech, where earlier this year students were wrongfully told by a zealous Montgomery County registar that they could lose scholarship money and coverage under their parent's health insurance. Montgomery County later "clarified" their website.

The whole brouhaha has to do with an unclear Virginia law that states a dorm or college address is acceptable for voting, but only if students declare it as their formal residence. No biggie, right? Well, not exactly.
 

A formal residence must be two things: an abode, which is a place where the student stays, and a domicile, a place where the student has intent to remain for an unlimited time.
 

Now for some students, college is a place they plan on staying indefinitely a la Van Wilder, but not so for others. However, officials have concluded that “intent” is in the eye of the beholder (as in I intended to go to class instead of spending all day playing Duck Hunt in last night’s clothes) so students should have the go-ahead to vote.
 

So damn the man and register to vote. Then go back to playing Duck Hunt, because seriously the game never gets old.