As voters head to the polls today, many in the boating community are closely watching a Tennessee court battle that was sparked when hundreds of RV enthusiasts were dropped from the voter rolls because they have no fixed address. Boaters say they fear a similar crackdown could impact those who live aboard their vessels.

In the last two years, more than 200 RV enthusiasts who listed a mail forwarding service in rural Bradley County, Tenn. as their home address have been struck from the voter rolls. The action followed a 2005 court decision that tightened that state's residency requirement.

In recent weeks, the American Civil Liberties Union has taken up the case, arguing in federal court that the purge was unfair and unconstitutional, and that the RVers should be allowed to vote in today's presidential primary.

State officials contend that some RVers are registering in certain states, like Tennessee, to avoid taxes. Many RVers and those who live aboard their boats register at mailbox services in the nine states that have no general personal income tax: Tennessee, Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Texas, Washington and Wyoming.

Experts say that voter disenfranchisement among those for whom the open road – and seas – is a way of life is a far greater possibility now, as federal and local governments begin tightening up regulations in a frenzy of an anti-terrorism and illegal immigration measures. In Seattle's King County, dozens of liveaboards who used mailboxes found their ballots questioned after a high profile Republican challenge in 2005.

"In a post 9-11 country, as jurisdictions are passing rules that target illegal immigrants, it's becoming more and more difficult for anybody who does not have a physical, land-based address to ensure they have the right to vote," said Mark Nicholas, the author of "The Essentials of Living Aboard a Boat."

NO NATIONAL STANDARD

The problem, experts say, is that there is no national standard for voter registry in the country. Many laws vary from state to state, or even county to county or city to city.

"It's not an easy issue," said Linda Ridihalgh, the editor of Living Aboard magazine, a Texas-based magazine devoted to the live-aboard community. "But most of our liveaboards have been more concerned with being missed by the census."

According to the U.S. Census, more than 105,000 Americans live full-time in their RVs, boats or vans, but, because of the nomadic nature of those citizens, the number may actually be greater.

No reliable estimates for the number of liveaboard voters exist, Ridihalgh said.

Nicholas said that he conducted dozens of interviews with liveaboard boaters around the country for his book and found that the vast majority of them live on boats that stay anchored in marina slips, work full-time jobs and essentially treat their vessel as a floating apartments. "At night, the only thing that separates them from civilization is six inches" of water, Nicholas said.

Hundreds of retirees have adapted cruising lifestyles, many living on recreational vehicles during the winter months and on their boats during the summer.

Yet there is a small, fiercely independent cadre of lifeaboards who are trying to live life completely "off the grid," avoiding taxes and living with as little contact with government agencies as possible. When Nicholas recently posted a query on two liveaboard discussion forums, asking if they any had had voter registration problems, he was surprised by the vitriolic responses the post received from those who not only did not care if they risked becoming disenfranchised but simply did not want to vote.

"My sense was that they figured that if local governments got into the act of legislating voting rights for liveaboards they'd get dragged into some kind of regulatory scheme. They'd rather live below the radar, untouched and unnoticed," Nicholas said.

THE REGISTRAR

Nicholas said that for boaters who do want to vote, their best tactic is to speak directly with the registrar of voters in the county where their mail is delivered to make sure they will allow a particular address.

Many RVers and boaters circumvent trouble by having a friend or relative collect their mail, liveaboards say, use the marina address where their boat is moored or sign up with a mail-forwarding service that caters to liveaboards and RVers.

Nancy Zapf, the vice president of the Seven Seas Cruising Association, a group of liveaboards and cruisers, said called the registrar's office in Florida more than a month in advance to request an absentee ballots for the Florida primary, which was held on Jan. 29. Zapf and her husband live on their RV during the winter and their Alden 50 sailboat Halekai in the summer. She uses a mail forwarding service in Florida that has an actual street address rather than a P.O. box – but, unlike the Tennessee voters, they have not had any problems, she noted. She'll get her absentee ballots delivered for the general election aboard their boat in New Zealand later this year.

Scott Fraser, an online sweater salesman who lives in his 31-foot sailboat off the coast of Key West, has not been so lucky in his five-year quest to vote in municipal elections there.

He first visited the registrar of voter's office in 2003 and asked permission to register, which was granted. The clerk simply took a ruler and extended the precinct lines from the city into the water to figure out his polling spot, Fraser recalled.

CITY OR COUNTY

But when Fraser started a voter registration drive with some of the 200 liveaboards around him, the city got nervous, he claims, and reversed their decision. The city attorney ultimately ruled that the boaters were residents of the unincorporated county but not the city.

Angry, he and other liveaboards organized a protest demonstration, dressing up as Native Americans and tossing seaweed into the waters off Key West in a re-enactment of the Boston Tea Party.

"We dressed up as Native Americans with loin cloths...we dumped dry seaweed because we didn't want them to come out and fine us for polluting," said Fraser with a chuckle. "At that point the city wasn't looking too favorably on us."

Five years later, he still wishes he could vote in the city elections in the town he loves.

"We've never felt like we're citizens of the community where we live and work," Fraser said. "They look to the boaters and say, 'They don't pay taxes, they're not part of our community.' Well, it's a constitutional right. It's not a question of having to pay money to be able to vote."