Right to Vote In Cambridge

AT A TIME when the nation is reeling from the dual impact of Watergate and the investigation of Vice President Agnew, it is essential that citizen participation in both local and national issues be encouraged. Only through an aroused populace can the United States reject authoritarianism and corruption in government and re-order its domestic and foreign priorities.

Yet the Cambridge Election Commission continues to stubbornly deny most students their right to register and vote in this city. In opposition to state policy and several court decisions which support the principle of allowing students to register where they attend school, the Election Commissioners cling to fears of an irresponsible student electorate steering the city toward ruin. They ignore the fact that only a small minority of Harvard and M.I.T students desire to claim Cambridge as their home, and that these students can make significant contributions to the city's future.

The Election Commissioners have engaged in extraordinary rhetorical contortions to determine that most student applicants are not sufficiently committed to the city of Cambridge. Their selection of questions is imaginative but totally arbitrary. They may inquire about a student's bank account, tax returns, driver's license, draft card, past employment, or whether the student's parents claim him or her as a dependent for Federal income tax purposes. Sometimes the Commissioners even ask the student if there is "a place reserved for you at home--a room of your own?" One wonders how they deal with beds in attics and bunk-beds with siblings.

Even more fantastic are the questions that rely on a student's metaphysical state and powers of prophesy: "What have you done to give up your former residence?" "When did you decide that you wanted to make Cambridge your home?" "Do you have any plans beyond your student days?" Furthermore, the conditions necessary for registration of a student seem to vary from week to week, while older people or those with jobs are registered almost automatically.

While students in Boston, Amherst and other cities and towns in the state register without difficulty, Cambridge remains a regressive exception. There is presently a bill under consideration by the Massachusetts legislature that would establish uniform procedures for registering everyone, student and non-student, quickly and efficiently. It should be passed and readily signed into law. Until then, the Election Commission should remember that suffrage is no longer a privilege dispensed by the few, but a fundamental and precious right afforded to all.