In Rehoboth, voting rights an issue

In Rehoboth Beach, where the year-round population is dwarfed by tourists and seasonal workers, the rules on who can vote in city elections exclude newcomers.

Anyone wanting to vote in Rehoboth's August elections must have bought property, signed a long-term lease or established residency by early February and then have registered as a voter at City Hall by early June. The goal has always been to ensure the city's voters are firmly rooted in the community and are not transients.

Now, with a bill in the Legislature aiming to improve voter access to the ballot in municipal elections, Rehoboth mayor Sam Cooper says the six-month mandate for residency is likely ending. Very recently arrived residents, he says, should gain voting rights soon after they make Rehoboth their home. Sooner than half a year.

"There are a number of court cases that say long residency periods are not constitutional," Cooper said Monday. "We recognize that six months is an issue, constitutionally."

Cooper opposes the bill, HB 395, that aims to adjust Rehoboth Beach's voter eligibility laws, because he says it would open the door too widely for nonresident voters — people who control property in Rehoboth but do not live there.

Sponsored by Rep. Melanie George Smith, D-Bear, the bill's first change would make municipalities keep registration open at least until 30 days before a vote. Rehoboth's registration cutoff now is about 60 days ahead of its annual August election. The bill's official synopsis says it would make municipal voting laws aligned with federal standards.

Complicating the bill is a second change: By eliminating "durational requirements" for residents and nonresidents, it opens the door for residents, property buyers and long-term renters to immediately become eligible Rehoboth Beach voters instead of having to develop a connection to the resort at least six months prior to an election.

"It doesn’t change the requirements for being able to vote. It changes how long you have to have met them," said Mark Purpura, a Rehoboth Beach resident and an attorney who supports the bill.

That's not sensible for nonresident voters, Cooper said, because seasonal workers and partial-year tenants aren't usually well-informed about the city's politics.

"I would think no one would think a college student working here at Funland and going home after the summer should be voting in Rehoboth city elections," Cooper said. "They don’t have a long-term stake in the city. They maybe have not been here very long so they don’t know the issues."

But some would be able to vote under the bill.

Right now, Rehoboth Beach accepts voter registration for its early-August elections only until the second Friday of June, as is called for in its charter. If you decide in January you want to vote in the coming August election, you must buy property or sign a 10-year lease by February and register as a voter by early June to assert your new nonresident status.

While most municipalities deny non-resident property owners the franchise, several Delaware beach towns, including Rehoboth Beach and Dewey Beach, allow them to vote, believing they have vested interests in seeing the city prosper.

If HB 395 becomes law, that charter-driven schedule would be invalidated. Instead, Rehoboth would have to keep voter registration open at least as late as 30 days before the election — early July. If it wanted, it could keep registering voters for the second-Saturday-in-August balloting right up to Election Day.

That's the part of the bill that Common Cause of Delaware initially supported. "Common Cause believes every eligible voter should have the right to vote," said Claire Snyder-Hall, a Common Cause spokeswoman. The group, she said, "supports the concept behind HB 395 — that there should not be a six-month residency requirement for voters and that registration deadlines should not be more than 30 days."

Other towns, not just Rehoboth, have been criticized for closing their voter registration windows well ahead of elections. Frankford residents challenged its town government practice of closing registration 37 days early.

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But, Snyder-Hall said, further discussion about the bill raised concerns about the degree to which it would expand eligibility of non-residents who still have property ties to towns — landlords and absentee landowners.

As it stands now, those nonresidents must have a property stake in Rehoboth at least six months before the election. Under HB 395, a person could buy a Rehoboth property 31 days before the election, register to vote the next day, and be able to vote the following month.

When that part of the bill was aired out in hearings and blog discussions, Common Cause walked back its support. "When we started to understand there were possibly unintended consequences to the bill as written, that’s when we decided we wanted more time to talk to the stakeholders," Snyder-Hall said.

Smith, the bill's primary sponsor, did not return a call for comment.

Cooper, on Monday, said he'd had discussions with lawmakers about the bill in recent days, and he expected amendments to surface preserving the durational requirements for nonresidents. "It was designed and marketed to meet the constitutionality of the 30-day residency thing. Then people tucked other things into it. That's wrong," Cooper said.

HB 395 passed the House 37-2 on June 16 and was reported out of a Senate committee on June 22. If it doesn't pass the Senate by Thursday, the last day of this two-year legislative session, it dies.

Contact James Fisher at (302) 983-6772, on Twitter@JamesFisherTNJorjfisher@delawareonline.com.