To the Editors:

We are shocked and offended by Johanna Pionke’s letter in last week’s Review. Ms. Pionke believes that Oberlin College has come down on the “wrong side” of the law by issuing students utility bills containing their permanent street address. We believe that Ms. Pionke and those who would side with her have come down on the wrong side of the law by actively seeking to disenfranchise an entire bloc of voters.

The truth: Oberlin College and students followed Ohio’s voting laws and regulations. The College and students worked closely with our county board of elections and the Secretary of State. And for years we’ve simply been offering students options; our materials start with the heading “Information on voting in Oberlin or wherever you consider home.”

Beyond her dictatorial desire to fully disenfranchise all Oberlin students, Ms. Pionke is consistently wrong. Most students consider Oberlin their home. After all, we live here for three-quarters of the year — or more (many of us stay a few more years). We pay taxes with every paycheck, rent check or purchase at a local store.

Ohio’s voter ID law, which came into effect in 2006, was aimed at disenfranchising students, minorities, the poor and the homeless. Proponents of voter IDs argue that it stops voter fraud, a problem that doesn’t exist. The League of Women Voters of Ohio and the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio looked at 9,078,728 votes cast here in 2002 and 2004. They found only four instances of voter fraud (that’s 0.00000044% of the total votes).

From Lucy Stone, one of the College’s first female students, to now, a constant fight for suffrage has dominated Oberlin’s history. Our country stopped disenfranchising people because of their sex or race, and we prohibited unpatriotic, despotic poll taxes. In America, we don’t ask voters how they’re taxed, nor demand a payment or literacy test before handing them a ballot. In America, you can vote.

Ms. Pionke’s letter assumes a sinister, ulterior motive on the part of Oberlin College students that simply does not exist. We are members of this community. We live here, shop here and learn here. We tutor and teach in the schools, volunteer in community organizations and engage our city government. We pay attention, stay involved and we care. Since we both first started at Oberlin in 2004, we have seen an amazing outpouring of informed student engagement in the community, state and national issues on our ballots. Last presidential election, students stood in lines for up to eight hours to vote. We united as a community, with Conservatory students giving impromptu concerts and OSCA’s co-ops cooking food for the waiting voters. The more Americans [that]  vote at this age, the more likely they are to continue engaging in our great democratic government.

The kind of chastising and fear mongering Ms. Pionke puts forth has no place in civil discourse. Such attitudes toward the student body do nothing to mend the already strained town-gown relations she herself speaks of.  We applaud and thank the College for helping students exercise their American right to vote. We praise the students who braved the horrible weather on election day and participated in our democracy.

The thousands of us who live in Oberlin kindly request that Maryland residents not tell us how to act.

–Lindsay Garces

–Colin Koffel

College seniors