Over the past weeks we asked for input from our supporters regarding the merits of Automatic Voter Registration as a policy to increase voter turnout in the United States. You answered us, and the support for Automatic Voter Registration is overwhelming!
58,316 (89%) of the 65,688 people that took our poll on Automatic Voter Registration said they support the policy of automatically registering every citizen to voter when they turn 18!
We heard you loud and clear, which is why we created our Automatic Voter Registration Petition. Support for this effort has been robust, as more than 52,000 voters signed our petition over the last month. If you support automatically registering every citizen to vote on their 18th birthday but have not yet added your name to our petition then act now!
Automatic Voter registration Petition: https://go.turnoutpac.org/auto-reg
Learn More About the Automatic Voter Registration Movement:
- Fairvote.org lists Automatic Voter Registration as a key reform. They cut to the heart of the matter and make a strong turnout based argument. Go read the whole thing
Complete and accurate voter rolls are essential to the integrity of the electoral process and the legitimacy of results. Yet, as evidenced by recent elections, voter rolls are littered with duplicate registrants and errors. Nearly a third of eligible American voters are not registered to vote and voter registration drives result in a surge of registrations close to an election that are difficult to process and that create unanticipated demands on polling places. As a result, millions of eligible voters are effectively shut out of the political process.
- Democracyjournal.org makes a case for Automatic Voter Registration – based on efficiency and fiscal responsibility- that both conservatives and liberals will find compelling. Go read the whole thing
We don’t have to trade off access or integrity because it promotes both. Liberals should welcome universal registration because it makes voting easier. Conservatives ought to like the system because it prevents registration fraud (countries with universal registration don’t have ACORNs). And everyone will appreciate the fact that universal registration is cheaper. The Pew Center on the States found that Canada spends 35 cents per voter to register its citizens. Oregon (the only state that makes such data available), in contrast, spends more than $4 per voter. And Canada gets more bang for the buck. Ninety-three percent of eligible voters are on the Canadian rolls; the Brennan Center for Justice reports that it’s 68 percent in the United States.
- The Brennan Center for Justice gives a great recap of momentum that Automatic Registration movement has received since Oregon first passed its version in March 2015. Check out their chart that breaks down the legislative progress made in each state.
A new reform to modernize voter registration with the potential to dramatically increase registration rates is gaining momentum. In March 2015, Oregon passed a breakthrough law to automatically register eligible citizens who have driver’s licenses (and do not ask to remain unregistered). While there had been strong and bipartisan efforts across a majority of states to modernize voter registration, Oregon’s law went a step further, giving government the primary responsibility for ensuring that every eligible citizen is registered.
Soon after Oregon’s bill was signed into law, legislators in 17 states plus the District of Columbia and the United States Congress introduced similar bills that would automatically register citizens who interact with motor vehicle offices and ensure that voter information is electronically and securely sent to the voter rolls.
This momentum has carried into the 2016 presidential race. In a campaign speech in June, Hillary Rodham Clinton embraced automatic, universal voter registration for eligible citizens once they turn 18, and more recently Senator Bernie Sanders introduced an automatic registration bill in Congress. Senator Sanders’ bill was the second automatic registration bill introduced in Congress this year; in June, Rep. David Cicilline and 45 cosponsors introduced legislation requiring automatic registration for federal elections at all DMVs.
- In June, House Democrats introduced Automatic Voter Registration legislation. From The Hill:
Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.) has proposed a bill to automatically register Americans to vote, fresh off of similar calls by Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
“Today, too many politicians are trying to make it harder than ever for citizens to make their voices heard at the ballot box,” Cicilline said in a statement on Wednesday.
[…] Cicilline told The Hill in an interview that his bill “reverses the presumption” to take the burden of registering off of the potential voter.
“Currently, you have to take an affirmative act to vote and register and as a result of that, a number of people never register and as a consequence don’t have the ability to participate in our elections,” he said.
- In campaign speech in June, Democratic Primary President Candidate Hilary Rodham Clinton embraced Automatic Voter Registration. From Politico Magazine:
Last week, in Houston, Texas, Hillary Rodham Clinton denounced the wave of restrictive new voting laws enacted by Republican legislatures around the country. Those of us who aren’t wild about disenfranchising eligible citizens welcomed Clinton’s passionate defense. It’s been years since a major candidate made democracy reform a central issue. But the most important thing about the speech was her embrace of a transformative policy innovation: automatic, universal registration of voters once they turn 18. It’s an idea that’s already begun to gain ground across the country, building on reforms with bipartisan support. Now we have a chance to take it even further.
- In August, Democratic Presidential Candidate and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders introduced Automatic Voter Registration legislation in the Senate. Senator Sanders penned an Op-Ed for Huffington Post where he detailed how Automatic Voter Registration is a key tool in the fight for voting rights:
I have introduced legislation to make Election Day a national holiday, but that’s just a start. We must make early voting an option for voters who work or study and need the flexibility to vote on evenings or weekends. We must make no-fault absentee ballots an option for all Americans.
Every American over 18 must be registered to vote automatically, so that students and working people can make their voices heard at the ballot box. We must put an end to discriminatory laws and the purging of minority-community names from voting rolls.
- The Nation wrote an article in September that looks at how Automatic Voter Registration can transform American politics in a manner similar to change that followed the 1976 Voting Rights Act. It is worth a read:
By pushing automatic registration, “we’re reshaping the discussion about voting rights,” Padilla says. “It’s not just about being on defense but going on offense by making it easier for people to cast ballots.”
Voter registration laws have historically been used to exclude people from the democratic process. “There’s a lot of other rights that we don’t have to opt into—freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom from discrimination,” Padilla says. The right to vote should have the same universal protection.
- The Hill agrees with PTP’s approach of automatically register every eligible voter and does a great job explaining why Automatic Voter Registration should not be left solely in the hands of past state DMV data bases:
Under the model passed in Oregon and now being considered in Congress and other states, the process is limited to only the DMV database. This sole reliance on the DMV leaves behind many eligible voters who do not have a driver’s license or state photo ID. As extensive national data shows us, these voters are disproportionately people of color. In Wisconsin and Texas, for example, federal trials have shown that registered voters without state photo IDs are disproportionately black and latino. More than 300,000 registered voters in Wisconsin and 600,000 in Texas do not have state photo IDs, a staggering portion of the potential electorate. Furthermore, voters with disabilities, the elderly, low-income and young voters all have disproportionately less access to these particular forms of ID.
With no mechanism for people without DMV identification to participate in the automatic registration process that everyone else benefits from, the proposed model excludes about 10 percent of eligible voters. And in making voting easier for some, while omitting the very populations most in need of greater access, this model also stands to potentially whitewash the voter rolls.
To avoid this, lawmakers seeking automatic voter registration mechanisms should expand such programs to include all eligible voters. Without attention to these details, the dangerous trend of limiting automatic voter registration to those with drivers’ licenses poses the risk of becoming “the new normal.” To be truly inclusive and help all voters get registered automatically, data from multiple agencies must be used. This is what all presidential candidates should aspire to.
