With young people registering to vote in record numbers this year, one would think that would be reason for celebration.

Yet news out of Montgomery County, Va., home to Virginia Tech, indicates that local and state officials have tried to discourage the student vote by suggesting some severe consequences for many who registered there.

After a massive registration drive by the Barack Obama campaign, The New York Times reported, local election officials incorrectly warned students that by registering to vote in the county they may lose scholarships, no longer be eligible to be claimed as dependents on their parents’ income tax, and could possibly lose car and health insurance under their parents’ coverage.

The battle for the students’ voting residency has been around since ratification of the 26th Amendment in 1971, when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18.

In small communities, particularly those in which the student body of a university may outnumber the town’s population, some local authorities have feared that young college students would have an undue influence on elections and could actually change the face of local politics and, thus, their way of life.

Waller County, home to Texas’ historically black Prairie View A&M University, for years fought against students being able to vote within its electoral boundaries. The district attorney actually threatened to prosecute students who registered.

It was a case from Waller that led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1979 declaring it legal for students to vote in the place where they attended college.

Still, some states came up with drastic and sometimes vague election rules that allowed local and state officials to interpret the laws in a punitive way toward those attending college. For example, some suggested that if students registered to vote in their state or county, the students also should have to register their cars there and have driver’s licenses issued from that state.

In Virginia, after questions from students, parents and representatives of civil rights organizations, the state Board of Elections last week announced that it was "modifying and clarifying" the registration guidelines, the Times said.

For college students in Texas, there is no question that they have the right to register to vote in the county where they attend school

The Secretary of State’s Web site proclaims: "You are presumed under Texas law to be in the best position to make a factual determination concerning where your residence is for registration purposes. However, you cannot register in more than one location; if you register at a voter registration drive in one county, but put another Texas county as your home on the application, your application will be forwarded to the Texas county of your residence description."

The site also instructs election officials who provide advice for students and other potential voters to inform them:

"If they would like to register to vote at their college address, they may do so.  . . . The general rule of thumb for election officials and those engaged in voter registration drives is that wherever the student claims residency, that is where they should be registered to vote."

That kind of clarity should be available to college students in every state.