With all of the discussion on school districts and administrative consolidations, it may be hard to believe that the Legislature has already started work on hundreds of other bills in the past month. There is one in particular that has received some attention, and I’d like to weigh in on the proposal, which would restrict voting rights for college students.

You may have heard of this bill. As proposed, it would not allow college students from out of state to vote in Maine if their residence here is a dorm. College students who come from communities in Maine, or out-of-state students who can afford to rent an apartment would be lucky enough to still vote under this bill – their rights would not be disenfranchised.

Instead, this bill targets those students who live in campus housing – it essentially says that if you can afford the price of an off-campus apartment, you get to vote; if you can’t, then too bad.

It is ridiculous to suggest that the laws and business of the state don’t affect these students or that they don’t deserve the right to vote simply because they choose to, or in some cases can only afford to live in university housing.

Try to tell a student studying engineering at the University of Maine that he can’t vote on a bond issue that would bring his school millions of dollars in research funding.

Try to tell a student at the Southern Maine Community College who works after class in order to afford her books that she can’t vote for a candidate who supports increasing the minimum wage. The fact is, college students spend as much time in Maine, and in some cases more, as year-round residents. They work in Maine, they participate in the community, and they care just as much as we do about the direction our state is headed in.

And, one hopes, when they graduate, they’ll decide to stick around. College provides the ideal opportunity for young people to take an interest in government and to begin to identify themselves as contributing members of a community. If those students were not allowed to vote while spending most of their four or five years living in Maine, they would be less interested in participating in events outside of school – and they would be less interested in staying in a state that wasn’t willing to accept their opinion or count their vote.

Supporters of the bill say they’re trying to prevent students from voting twice – once at school and once at home. Although they were not able to provide any proof of this happening, it would be a crime punishable by law. But singling out the entire group because they may have the ability to break a law is essentially the same as punishing them for a crime they didn’t commit.

Let’s be completely clear about what this bill would do: It would take voting rights away from people who want to take an active part in government; it would discourage graduates from staying in Maine after college; and it would cast blame on an innocent group of people for a crime they haven’t committed.

The constitution is in place to prevent bills like this one from becoming law. I can’t find a single legitimate reason to support the bill, and I will vote against it when it comes to the House floor.

Benjamin Pratt, D-Eddington, represents District 20 in the Maine House of Representatives.