A federal judge ruled Friday that Fairfax County must allow 171 George Mason University students to vote next week after their voter registration applications were rejected for providing a generic university address.
U.S. District Court Judge Rossie Alston ordered the county to allow students who submitted their application on or before Oct. 15 to correct their address information, giving them until 5 p.m. Saturday to do so.
If the students miss that deadline, they must be allowed to vote Tuesday with a provisional ballot at the university’s Merlen Hall precinct if they provide their specific addresses beforehand, the judge ruled.
Earlier this week, the nonprofit Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law sued the county’s election officers in U.S. District Court in Alexandria after the students were told that the generic George Mason addresses on their applications made them ineligible to vote in Fairfax.
Fairfax officials said they were trying to prevent situations where students who don’t live in the county were inadvertently allowed to vote there, noting that George Mason allows students who live off campus — potentially in neighboring counties or cities — to use university mailboxes.
The Washington-based Lawyers’ Committee argued the county’s position could cause widespread confusion for college students in Virginia since the state elections department website says generic university addresses are acceptable forms of proof that a student is eligible to vote in a given area.
John Powers, a lawyer with the civil rights group, noting that with thousands of full-time college students in Virginia registered at their university addresses, “there is a bigger concern here, in terms of the 2020 elections, about whether their registrations are ultimately going to be questioned because they did not provide their dorm name or room number.”
