Montana Registration Restriction: Judge Withholds Ruling as Midterms Approach

A Missoula County judge has blocked Montana's new residency restriction on student voter registration, keeping the state's earlier rules in place through Election Day. The measure, passed last year by the Republican-controlled legislature, applied to residents in an educational program who wanted to register in a Montana county.

Under the revised law, such residents could register only if they intended to make that county or the state their permanent home after the program ended. MontPIRG, a student advocacy group, sued over the change. State officials have argued the provision does not cover students at Montana colleges and universities, writing in a court filing that reading it otherwise would "render the word 'temporary' meaningless, because no one understands obtaining a two, four, or eight-year degree as a temporary endeavor."

Judge Jason Marks has not accepted that reading. In February, he found the restriction likely violates the Montana constitution. After a hearing this month, he is preparing a final ruling in the case brought by MontPIRG. The group has said the change could cost thousands of students a voice in how their communities are run.

The dispute sits against a longer legal backdrop. A 1979 Supreme Court decision affirmed that eligible students may register where they live during the academic year. Michael Hanmer, a University of Maryland professor of government and politics who studies student voters, said officials cannot treat groups differently. "College students need to be treated the same as anybody else in the mix here who might be new to a particular place," he said.

Registration questions turn on where a person has established domicile, which Yael Bromberg, an attorney and co-editor of Youth Voting Rights: Civil Rights, the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, and the Fight for American Democracy on College Campplaces, described as a single fixed home a person intends to return to. For students uncertain about postgraduation plans, Bromberg said the determination is "highly personal and an individualized assessment."

Montana generally requires a U.S. citizen to be at least 18 and to have lived in the state for 30 days to register. At a public hearing last year, some supporters of the restriction argued that students from outside Montana should not influence state elections. Hanmer said he would be surprised if the restriction survives, while noting that students choosing where to register should check local rules, since some states require added steps such as a new state ID or car registration. Those steps, he said, cost time but are imposed on all new residents, not just college students.