A Stitch in Haste

lost enforcement = when law enforcement, politicians or bureaucrats, when unsure of what the law is, choose to err on the side of arrest, threatening to arrest, confiscation of property or otherwise improperly infringing on individual liberties, often under the guise of "act now and let the courts figure it out later"

To the extent the phenomena described in this New York Times editorial are occurring, they are outrageous:

It is nice to think that elections officials want to do everything they can to help young voters. But the truth is, many cities and towns with colleges and universities regard student voters - who are more transient than the average resident, and whose political views also may be different - as a challenge to the established order. As a result, local elections officials often discourage students from registering and voting from their campus addresses, even though the Supreme Court has ruled that they have the right to do so.

In Texas this year, a county district attorney threatened to prosecute students from Prairie View A&M University if they tried to register. The students had to file a lawsuit before he withdrew the threat and apologized. A student at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., was told that he was not a "permanent resident" and had to vote from his parents' home in another state. And a Fox affiliate in Tucson recently carried a report quoting an elections official who warned, falsely, that University of Arizona students who registered from their dorms might be committing a felony.

I qualify my outrage for two reasons. First, this could be a case of the exception proving the rule. If, out of tens of millions of 18-24 years olds eligible to vote, only three incidents have been documented, that's arguably a pretty good track record (although of course three is "three too many").

Second, I suspect much of the confusion in such cases would be averted if students bothered to register to vote in advance instead of just showing up at the polls, a practice I do not condone. I have somewhat less sympathy for people who just show up willy-nilly at the polls and as a result have difficulty in the last-minute quest to register.

Still, here we see, yet again, examples of country bumpkin officials or other puny bureaucrats simply not knowing (or, worse, not caring) what the law is, and deciding to err on the side of arrest, intimidation and the attempted abrogation of rights. No such abuses of state power can ever be tolerated, and to the extent they occur, the perpetrators must be removed from their positions.

The "Lost Enforcement" Archives:

"Lost Enforcement": Arrested for a Bookmark
"Lost Enforcement": Memory-Hole Tactic Acknowledged as Illegal
"Lost Enforcement": Couple Arrested for Anti-Bush Shirts Proceed with Lawsuit
Tipping and the Bill of Rights
Another "The Law Be Damned" Moment
Painting Over the Canvass(ers)
"I Left the Law...in San Francisco..."