{"id":104203,"date":"2016-11-11T08:38:42","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T13:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=104203"},"modified":"2017-06-28T10:03:35","modified_gmt":"2017-06-28T14:03:35","slug":"bates-in-the-news-nov-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2016\/11\/11\/bates-in-the-news-nov-11\/","title":{"rendered":"Bates in the News: Nov. 11, 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Voter Suppression<\/a><\/h3>\n
President Spencer says a flier posted on campus was “absolutely directed at suppressing the vote” \u2014 Washington Post<\/em><\/h5>\n

A dastardly attempt to discourage Bates students from voting caught the attention of local and national media.<\/p>\n

“Somebody doesn\u2019t want Bates College students to vote Tuesday,” reported the Lewiston Sun Journal<\/em><\/a> on Nov. 6.<\/p>\n

Orange fliers posted in Commons and residences on Sunday by an unknown person implied that voting in Maine meant that a student must get a Maine driver’s license and, if they owned a car, register it, which could cost “hundreds of dollars.”<\/p>\n

Wrong, wrong, wrong.<\/p>\n

\"Orange<\/a>

Orange fliers with false voting information posted on campus on Nov. 6 were a deliberate attempt to discourage students from voting, said President Spencer. (Photograph by Sarah Frankie Sigman ’18)<\/p><\/div>\n

In a statement issued Monday morning<\/a>, President Spencer took to the bully pulpit, reaffirming Bates students’ legal right to vote and to same-day registration and denouncing the fliers as \u201cclearly a deliberate attempt at voter suppression.” She added:<\/p>\n

We are proud of our students\u2019 interest and participation in the electoral process, and I am deeply disturbed that anyone would seek to deter their exercise of the most basic form of citizenship…. Any unofficial communications that suggest otherwise are contrary to the ideals of American democracy.<\/p>\n

\n

President Spencer leads off this story by WCSH-TV in Portland by saying that the orange fliers seemed “absolutely directed at suppressing the vote.”<\/em><\/p>\n