Some States Using Automatic Voter Registration to Broaden Voter Access

Photo: Gino Santa Maria / Shutterstock.com

The American political system requires that people vote. In order to elect officials who actually represent the needs and desires of the people they represent, voting needs to be available to as broad a part of the population as possible.

However, half the states in the country have passed laws that make it more difficult for people to vote. Some restrict early voting or the re-enfranchisement of ex-felons; others require voters to present a photo ID at the polls.

The states with the most laws restricting voting are usually Republican-controlled, but a growing number of Democrat-controlled states are passing legislation to make it easier to vote. Automatic voter registration is chief among these.

Typically involving registering voters who register their vehicles in a state, automatic voter registration means every vehicle owner in the state is registered to vote unless they opt out.

Oregon passed the first automatic voter registration measure in March of 2015. State House Majority Leader Democrat Jennifer Williamson said, “The question should be, Why would we ever have a barrier? We should be constructing a system where the default is voting.”

But passing automatic voter registration laws in states with divided power is difficult. An AVR measure passed New Jersey’s legislature in 2015 and in 2016, but Republican governor Chris Christie vetoed it both times, claiming that it would cause an increase in voter fraud. An AVR measure passed the Illinois legislature, only to be vetoed by Republican Governor Bruce Rauner.

Sometimes compromise does happen. In West Virginia, where the legislature is controlled by Republicans but the governor is a Democrat, AVR was combined with a new requirement for voters to present ID at the polls.

Republican stronghold Alaska passed an AVR law by registering everyone who signs up for disbursements from the state’s Permanent Fund Dividend, which shares profits from oil drilling and transportation with each Alaskan resident. The Permanent Fund dividend checks are quire large, so virtually every Alaskan is registered for PFD disbursements.

On the other hand, North Dakota doesn’t register voters at all. People just show up at the polls with the required identification, and they are allowed to vote. “It goes very, very, very easily,” says Republican Alvin Jaeger, North Dakota’s secretary of state. “Dead people don’t vote in North Dakota, and neither do dogs.”

There are many ways to expand voter access, and even Republican-controlled states are doing so. Whether these broadened voter access laws will stay on the books or be quashed by lawmaking at the federal level by a Republican-controlled Congress and presidency remains to be seen.