Engaging young citizens in the democratic process is an issue that lawmakers and voting rights advocates have long attempted to address. But with most youth voter engagement efforts primarily targeting college-attending youth (who make up less than half of the population of 18-24 year olds and are more likely to register and vote), the problem of underrepresented youth is likely to remain unsolved.
As voter education and access to voter registration seem to go hand-in-hand with greater voter participation rates, more lawmakers and advocates are siding with a simple solution for youth voter engagement: preregistration. However, as the state legislatures demonstrate this year, support for this reform could not happen fast enough.
“Preregistration is an emerging election reform designed to help enfranchise young citizens in greater numbers by allowing them to register in advance of their 18th birthdays, so that they will automatically be enrolled and eligible to cast a ballot as soon as they reach voting age,” according to new Project Vote legislative brief, Expanding the Youth Electorate Through Preregistration. “In addition, most preregistration programs typically include an education component that teaches youth about voter education and civic engagement.”
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Six months after being struck down as unconstitutional for exempting absentee voters, Indiana’s contentious voter ID law may once again see the light of day.
Today, the state Supreme Court will hear an appeal to the case, League of Women Voters v. Rokita.
More on the issue can be found here.
Continuing our 2010 Issues in Election Administration series, a suite of materials designed for anyone wanting to know more about key issues, today Project Vote is releasing a new full-length policy paper, No Match, No Vote.
Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002 to impose fair and more uniform standards for state election administration, including provisions to streamline and modernize voter registration databases and establish identification requirements. However, some states have misinterpreted the intent of HAVA and passed onerous “No Match, No Vote” laws. Under such statutes, if a state is unable to match the information on a voter’s registration application with information in an existing government database, the application is denied outright.
As the new paper explains, however, research shows that matching voter data with other government databases is an unreliable, error-laden process, and that conditioning the right to vote on such a flawed system will inevitably disenfranchise eligible citizens.
No Match, No Vote summarizes the history, research, and key court cases related to the issue, and provides recommended best practices for states to adopt to help ensure that no eligible citizen is disenfranchised. We hope that you will find this paper useful in your work.
Last May, the Justice Department struck down a voter verification procedure that was discovered to be error-prone and discriminatory. Around the same time, the state passed SB 86, a bill requiring voter registrants to present proof-of-citizenship in order for their applications to be processed.
The verification process has been rejected once again, according to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. And, in a letter to the Attorney General Tuesday, the Justice Department “…reminds Secretary of State Brian Kemp that the [citizenship] legislation needs to be cleared, and it has an effective date of Jan. 1, 2010.” According to the letter:
“Although the legislation’s effective date has now passed and the state has adopted the necessary implementing regulations, our records do not indicate that these changes affecting voting have been submitted to the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for judicial review or to the Attorney General for administrative review as required by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Accordingly, it is necessary that these changes be brought before the federal district court or submitted to the Attorney General for the determination that they have neither the purpose nor will have the effect of discriminating on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group. Changes that affect voting are legally unenforceable unless or until appropriate Section 5 determination has been obtained.”
With a population of more than 30 million, California is one of the lowest ranking states in voter registration rates. Once registered, however, the vast majority of Californians show an interest in democratic participation by turning out to vote. In recognition of this gap, some California lawmakers are finding ways to make voter registration more accessible to citizens, including the tried and true method of providing access to voter registration and voting at the same time: Election Day Registration (EDR).
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Today the Arizona State Senate heard preregistration Senate Bill 1220, a proposed measure to allow all 17-year-old citizens to preregister to vote in order to automatically be on the voter rolls upon turning 18.
At the hearing, state representative and author of similar House Bill 2269, Ed Ablesser presented to the Senate Government Institutions committee about the issue of youth voting. Ablesser explained that the lack of a set preregistration policy in the state creates confusion and does not maximize on the state’s current law that allows a citizen to register to vote as long as he or she will be 18 by the next election. Under the proposed measure, Ablesser explained, all young people who reach the age of 17 will be able to preregister at any time, helping to engage young people in the voting processes earlier.
Much to the disappointment of the many supporters who attended the hearing, the chairman of the committee decided to hold the bill and not allow a vote, despite a positive reception from the committee to Ablesser’s presentation. Bill supporters expressed disappointment in the chairman’s actions, but are hopeful about bringing preregistration to the legislature next year.
Read Project Vote’s fact sheet on Preregistration in Arizona here.
Watch the hearing here.
After a month in session, the New Mexico Legislature adjourned last week on February 18, 2010.
This year session began with the introduction of House Bill 97, which would have changed the voter identification requirements. Although voter ID remains and increasingly popular issue across the country, this bill never made it to a committee vote and subsequently died. Most attention was put upon Election Day Registration bills, HB 123 and SB 161. Specifically, these bills would have allowed eligible citizens to register to vote at an early voting site and cast a ballot on the same day. Both of these bills made it out of committee, but never had a floor vote.
Supporters of HB 123 and SB 161 say the bills failed to get any significant traction because of New Mexico’s sizable budget deficit and the short Legislative session. They are hopeful for EDR bills in the future as the Senate Bill gained more momentum this year than it had in previous years, perhaps thanks to a diverse coalition that gathered in support of the bill.
To monitor EDR bills in other states, subscribe to Project Vote’s weekly election legislation eDigest by emailing Erin Ferns at eferns(AT)projectvote.org.
At Project Vote, we have become convinced that the most effective approach to our work is the seamless integration of research, advocacy, field experience, and legal expertise. I am very pleased to announce Project Vote’s new board of directors for 2010-2011, a group that brings together decades of experience in voter engagement, social justice, civil rights litigation, academic leadership, and philanthropy:
Frank Askin, Rutgers School of Law-Newark
Renee Brereton, Gamaliel Foundation (Chair)
Christina Greer, Fordham University (Secretary/Treasurer)
Margaret Groarke, Manhattan College (Chair, Audit Committee)
Craig Kaplan, Rabinowitz, Boudin, Standard, Krinsky, & Lieberman, P.C
Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York
David Stewart, Ropes & Gray, LLP (Chair, Legal Committee)
J. Philip Thompson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Garland Yates, Mobilizing Communities Network (Vice Chair)
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank our departing board members, Sunday Alibi, Donna Massey, Maxine Nelson, and Julie Smith for their years of service to Project Vote. These leaders helped Project Vote through a period of tremendous challenges and growth, and we are grateful to them for their commitment. (And thanks also to Lori Minnite, who has also stepped down from the board to become Project Vote’s first Director of Research).
As Project Vote begins an important new chapter in our organization’s history, we are honored to have the leadership, vision, and wisdom of these extraordinarily committed individuals.
Learn more about our Board of Directors here.
A seemingly harmless trend in voter list maintenance is to compare voter lists between states and cancel apparent matches. However, this method not only violates federal law, but has the potential to put thousands of voters at risk of wrongful purging. As a result, one of the first states to launch this trend has taken steps to ensure that voters are not improperly removed from the rolls and perhaps will serve as an example to states that may be putting voters at risk through these interstate compacts.
While there is nothing wrong with states sharing information in an attempt to keep their voter lists up-to-date, some state election officials think that they are justified in immediately removing a voter from their rolls if the computerized interstate database comparison reveals an apparent match with the name and birth date of a voter who has more recently registered out of state. Removal based on such a match without adequate notice to the voter is not only unreliable, it’s also illegal under the National Voter Registration Act.
Under Section 8 of the NVRA, voters can only be removed from voter rolls if they either confirm in writing that they changed their address or fail to respond to a forwardable notice and fail to vote in the next two federal general elections. Since 2007, Project Vote has worked with Fair Elections Legal Network in ensuring compliance with this section of the NVRA and assessing how states use data compiled from interstate compacts, particularly in Kansas. That year, the two groups notified the Kansas secretary of state’s office that its purging practice was problematic because it violated federal law and also posed the significant risk that voters who show as “matches” – because they share the same names and even birth dates – are not necessarily the same person.
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One of the requirements of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) is that state records relating to voter registration and list maintenance be made available to the public for inspection. Yesterday Project Vote and the Advancement Project, in cooperation with pro bono attorneys from the law firm of Ropes & Gray LLP, filed Project Vote v. Rodrigues, a lawsuit against election officials from the state of Virginia for failing to provide for such transparency.
In 2008, after receiving reports of large numbers of rejected voter registration applications–particularly from students at the historically African-American Norfolk State University–Advancement Project and Project Vote sought to review Norfolk’s rejected registration applications to determine if qualified persons were unlawfully kept off the voting rolls. We were denied access due to a Virginia law that prohibits such records from being disclosed, in clear violation of the NVRA.
In a country with a long and troubled history of voter suppression–particularly of minority voters–the access to records provided by the NVRA is vital to ensuring that states are not conducting voter purges in secret, or using arbitrary or politically-motivated criteria for removing eligible Americans from the rolls. This issue has never before been litigated, and therefore we have an opportunity to set an important precedent to help ensure the transparency and integrity of the voter registration process. We look forward to keeping you updated on the progress of this important case.
To read the press release about this lawsuit, click here.