Last week, three Republican N.C. senators sponsored Senate Bill 667, which would prevent parents from claiming their children as dependents if their children registered to vote at an address different from their parents’.
This bill is nothing more than an active attempt to suppress the youth vote. By taking away a tax exemption that saves parents up to thousands of dollars per year, the Republicans in the General Assembly would unnecessarily complicate youth voting by hitting their parents in their pockets.
North Carolina has 100 counties. Students are often more engaged with the politics of the counties they live in, rather than those of their parents’ counties. Regardless of how far away from home young people may be, they are often still dependent on their parents, whose taxes ought to reflect that fact.
Furthermore, this is a slap in the face to parents whose children go out of state for college. To punish parents for their children’s hard work shows more contempt than appreciation for the great talent that is cultivated in this state.
Proponents of this bill claim that it will help prevent gullible college students from being manipulated.
This vision of students as easily malleable pawns is way off the mark and further indicates how blatantly political this bill is.
This bill has set out to disgrace North Carolina by crushing the voices of young people who deserve to have their voices heard without having to pay to vote where they live.
