Colorado student to give up her vote to Brazilian

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BOULDER, Colo. -- This election, University of Colorado student Jennifer Bockelman is going to "give up" her vote to a friend, an international student from Brazil who zealously keeps up on American current events.Bockelman started a group on Facebook.com called "Voters without Borders," which has drawn about three dozen members during its inaugural two weeks. It encourages "American citizens to 'give up' their vote in order to vote the preferences of the politically involved non-citizens who also contribute to our nation." Those non-citizens, Bockelman said, may be more informed on the ballot measures.Bockelman and her friend Mariana Vieira, to whom she's giving a proxy vote, started looking over the Colorado ballot together Thursday. The two, who are working on master's of fine arts degrees at CU, met a couple of years ago at a graduate student orientation, and both fall on the liberal side of the political spectrum.And as long as it's Bockelman who shows up at the voting booth, or signs the mail-in ballot, she is within legal bounds, said Jessie Cornelius, spokeswoman for the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's Office."Anybody can rely on the advice of anybody else to cast their ballot," she said. "That's their choice."At polling places, election officials check the identification of voters. They also certify the signature on mail-in ballots to make sure it matches that on the voter registration form, Cornelius said.CU senior Justin Yarusso, treasurer for the Colorado Federation of College Republicans - an umbrella group for campus GOP clubs - said he thinks the project is a lame attempt by his peers to generate attention and shock others."While I believe that any effort to stop this insane move would be unconstitutional under the First Amendment, I think that we as a society need to discourage this type of pathetic behavior and publicly condemn the student who chooses to promote it."The Economist published a map of what it would look like if the world could participate in the U.S. election. The map is painted blue for the most part, with pockets of support for Republican presidential candidate John McCain in Cuba, Georgia, Namibia, Macedonia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.Vieira, who favors Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, said her parents in Brazil inquire about American politics in their weekly conversations. She said she became furious when McCain picked Sarah Palin as a running mate, describing it as an insulting move to court women voters."I am here legally," said Vieira, who came to the United States in 2001 as a student. "I pay taxes. But I don't get a voice. I don't get to vote."(Brittany Anas writes for the Daily Camera in Boulder, Co.)