Today, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its ruling in the case of Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, Inc., a lawsuit challenging 1993’s National Voter Registration Act. Project Vote Executive Director Michael Slater issued the following statement on the positive ruling:

“The NVRA was enacted in 1993 to make voter registration simpler and more accessible. As part of the effort to encourage voter registration and empower voter registration drives, the NVRA created a simple, uniform federal form with which all Americans could register to vote. Voter registration rates have markedly improved over the last 20 years, and most Americans now find registration to be a simple process.

In 2004, Arizona passed its controversial Proposition 200, requiring that people registering to vote with the federal registration form also submit documentary proof of citizenship. This new requirement stymied community based voter registration drives and created unreasonable hurdles for eligible Americans who wanted to register. Tens of thousands of voters were affected by this requirement, and voter registrations from eligible Americans were rejected.

Voting rights advocates, including Project Vote, filed suit arguing that this requirement violates the NVRA. Today, in a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court properly ruled that the NVRA preempts state rules regarding the voter registration form.

“[T]he Federal Form guarantees that a simple means of registering to vote in federal elections will be available,” wrote Justice Scalia in the majority opinion.

This decision is a strong affirmation of the NVRA, but also likely sets up further litigation about voter registration. Now is the time to do even more to draw on the provisions of the NVRA to promote participation in U.S. elections.

Project Vote will continue to fight against unnecessary hurdles to registration and voting. Project Vote is proud to have played a role in this important case upholding the NVRA, and we are gratified by this ruling that reaffirms the authority of this vital federal law.”

Photo by Mark Fischer/Creative Commons License

First enacted by Maine in 1973, Election Day Registration, or Same Day Registration, is a voter registration rule that allows individuals to register and then to vote on Election Day or during the early voting period. Voter participation has already jumped by as much as 10 percent in the nine states and the District of Columbia where these policies have been implemented. In 2012, 9.5 million Americans were able to walk into their polling places, register, and vote on the same day. All Americans should have this opportunity.

The Same Day Registration Act of 2013 (H.R.280 and S. 532) was introduced earlier this year to help make voting easier for all Americans. We’re asking the members of the Committee on House Administration in the House, and the Committee on Rules and Administration in the Senate, which oversee federal elections, to buck the voter suppression trend, pass these bills, and send them on for floor votes.

On the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the NVRA, Americans are calling on Congress to make voting more free, fair, and accessible for all. The NVRA streamlined the voter registration process, and now it’s time to boost voter participation by bringing Same Day Registration opportunities to all American voters.

Please sign the petition to make Same Day Registration universally available and pass it along now!

Today, Project Vote is pleased to release the latest policy paper in our Issues in Election Administration series, Online Voter Registration.

Online voter registration is a promising and increasingly popular way for states to expand the options available for eligible citizens to register to vote. Properly implemented, systems that allow citizens to register or update their registration information online have the potential to increase the accuracy of the voter rolls, reduce election administration costs, and bring more Americans—particularly underrepresented younger Americans—into the electoral process.

However, election officials must take care to ensure that such systems are designed to maximize the efficiency and impact of online registration. Furthermore, it is important to recognize that online registration may not help all populations equally. Officials should take steps to ensure that the shift towards electronic registration does not leave certain demographics behind and exacerbate existing disparities in the electorate.

Written by Project Vote Election Counsel Michelle Kanter Cohen, Online Voter Registration provides a comprehensive overview of this issue, identifying both the tremendous benefits and potential concerns of online registration.  The paper summarizes the various systems currently in place around the country, and offers reasonable recommendations for how legislators and election officials can best design online systems to reach the greatest number of eligible citizens.

Online voter registration is just one of the election reforms Project Vote and our partners are working to achieve through research, media initiatives, and advocacy efforts. The policy paper is the latest tool in a suite of materials available to assist advocates in this work, which also includes a model bill, model testimony,  talking points, and other items. You can find these materials at http://www.projectvote.org/online-registration.html.

That law, HB 1355, cut early voting to a minimum of only 48 hours over 8 days, down from 96 hours spread over 14 days. It also made other problematic changes to voting laws, including restricting community voter registration drives, and ending many voters’ ability to update their addresses and vote a regular ballot at the polls. It was also the subject of extended litigation that ultimately rejected some of its worst provisions.

This week, Scott approved HB 7013, which restores some of the lost early voting hours by raising the minimum early voting hours to a mandatory 64 hours over eight days and allowing county supervisors to schedule early voting for up to 168 hours over 14 days. The new law also allows (but does not require) supervisors to schedule early voting on the Sunday before the election. Although these options are an improvement over the dismal HB 1355–as Project Vote wrote in its testimony on an earlier version of the bill–the law “leaves too much to be decided by election supervisors: although it helps good election administrators to improve early voting, it does little to require improvement where it is needed most.”

Among other provisions, the new law also expands the number of options open to supervisors to designate early voting polling places.

But it only partially restores a provision that allows voters to update their address and vote a regular ballot on Election Day, meaning too many voters who moved will still be forced to cast a provisional ballot. Provisional ballots take more time to vote (causing longer lines), take more time to process, and are much less likely to be counted.

The new law is at least a step forward. But it doesn’t go far enough.  Next time, the legislature should do more to ensure that all eligible voters have an equal opportunity to take advantage of early voting regardless of where they live, and ensure that all voters who moved can easily cast ballots that count.

Photo by Gage Skidmore via Creative Commons license

Bowen made “California the first state to designate its health exchange as a voter registration agency Wednesday, but others are expected to follow suit,” reported the Sacramento Bee last week.

“This is about making sure that all eligible Californians are offered the chance to register to vote,” said Bowen’s spokesperson, Shannon Velayas.

The NVRA or “Motor Voter” law was enacted in 1993 to increase the number of registered voters in federal elections. One provision of the law, Section 7, requires public agencies—including DMVs, public assistance, and disability offices—to provide their clients the opportunity to register to vote. Since the NVRA’s implementation, about 141 million people registered to vote at these agencies. The newest agency, Covered California, is expected to reach millions of low- and moderate-income families who are seeking to buy health insurance policies.

We applaud Secretary Bowen for showing great leadership and taking initiative to designate California’s health insurance exchange as a voter registration agency. Going forward, we hope Covered California will follow the law and offer citizens a meaningful opportunity to register to vote.

Photo by Randy Bayne via Creative Commons license

The #NVRAat20 Twitter party starts today at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. Learn more about today’s festivities here.

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The NVRA is commonly known as the “Motor Voter” law because it requires every driver’s license application to include voter registration. The NVRA also mandated that voter registration be offered at public assistance agencies, created national standards for voter registration, and introduced safeguards against the wrongful purging of registrations.

Since the implementation of the NVRA, an estimated 141 million Americans have applied to get on the voter rolls through registration services the NVRA requires at DMVs, disability offices, and public agencies. In addition, countless more have been protected from purging due to the protections the NVRA provides.

“To the extent that Americans now think voter registration is easy, it’s largely because of the NVRA,” says Michael Slater, executive director of Project Vote. “It streamlined what had been a confusing and often obstructive system of state laws, and expanded voter registration opportunities to make our democracy more accessible to all eligible Americans.”

The major provisions of the NVRA require:

• That registration services be offered at driver’s license departments, public assistance and disability agencies; 
• The creation of a simple federal voter registration form that state election official must accept as method of registration; 
• The additional mandate that states allow for mail-in registration; and
• Safeguards on the procedures to protect voters already on the rolls from being purged. 

While the NVRA has made the system more accessible for many, the law still faces unequal implementation. Following the highly successful first two years of implementation in 1995-6, in which over 2.6 million applications were received nationwide through public assistance agencies, many states began ignoring their responsibility to offer these services. This lack of compliance resulted in millions of low-income Americans being denied the opportunity to register to vote.

Now, 20 years after the signing, decades of inconsistent enforcement means that many states are still failing to offer voter registration through public agencies.

“Most states do a passing job at offering voter registration at their Department of Motor Vehicles offices, but many fail to do so at their public assistance agencies,” explains Sarah Brannon, director of the Public Agency Voter Registration Program at Project Vote. “The NVRA mandated that voter registration be offered at government offices that offer public assistance precisely because they connect with Americans who were less likely to register through other means, such as low-income people and persons with disabilities.”

In the past decade, Project Vote, its partners Demos and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, and other organizations, have assumed the burden of enforcing the NVRA through litigation and advocacy. The groups have intervened in 14 states across the country to ensure compliance at pubic agencies. The effort has resulted in an estimated 1.8 million more Americans applying to be registered.

For example, registrations through Ohio public agencies had fallen from over 100,000 in 1995-6, to just over 21,000 per year in 2005-6. That changed dramatically following a November 2009 settlement of a lawsuit brought by the coalition to bring the state into compliance. From January 2010 through December 2012, Ohio public agencies collected more than 552,000 applications. Other states, including Missouri and Indiana, have seen similarly dramatic increases in registrations following litigation in those states.

“Public agency registration works,” says Brannon. “When properly implemented, it remains one of our most effective ways of reaching those Americans who have historically been underrepresented at the voting booth.”

In addition to uneven implementation, the NVRA today faces challenges from some states that are adding new requirements for applying to register to vote. Arizona, for example, is requiring documentary proof of citizenship. Project Vote is one of several plaintiffs challenging that new requirement in Inter Tribal Counsel of Arizona v. Arizona.

“The NVRA was created precisely to end these sorts of unnecessary hurdles to registration,” says Slater. “There is little evidence to suggest that non-citizen voting is a widespread problem, but this fear is being used to undermine the intent and effect of the NVRA.

“The history of voting rights in America is one of hard-fought expansion of the franchise,” says Slater. “As we celebrate the anniversary of the NVRA, we must not go backwards, but must continue moving forward to ensure that voting is free, fair, and accessible to all Americans.”

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For more information, contact Project Vote’s media director, Sarah Massey at smassey[at]projectvote.org.

Join Project Vote, Demos, Fem2pt0, Asian American Justice Center, Fair Elections Legal Network, Advancement Project, National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, League of Women Voters, Tennessee Citizen Action, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and others for the #NVRAat20 tweet chat on Monday, May 20 at 1 PM ET. We’ll discuss how Americans register to vote, the importance of this cornerstone law, how Project Vote and partners are taking action to improve enforcement of the NVRA to help more Americans register to vote, and what is the future for voter registration in the U.S.

Prior to the NVRA, there were widely divergent and confusing state laws that hindered voter registration. States each had their own forms, systems, requirements, and procedures for voter registration and voter list maintenance, creating too much confusion and too much potential for partisan manipulation. Voting rights, civic participation, and citizens pushed for the NVRA to make it easier for all Americans to register to vote and to maintain their registration.

The major provisions of the NVRA require:

• That registration services be offered at driver’s license bureaus; public assistance and disability agencies;
• The creation of a simple, national federal voter registration form that could substitute for the state forms that local officials had controlled (with the added mandate that states allow for mail-in registration); and
• Safeguards on the procedures for purging voters already on the rolls.

Thanks to the NVRA, an estimated 141 million Americans have applied to register to vote through their DMV or public agencies.

More work needs to be done to make voting free, fair, and accessible for all!

Take action in support of reducing barriers to voting. Let’s make Same Day Registration universally available. Sign the petition: http://chn.ge/10pAR2H

The NVRA has fulfilled its promise of streamlining voter registration and offering more access to voter registration through government offices. Now is the time for voters and advocates to push for Same Day Registration (also known as Election Day Registration), the next step in reducing barriers to voting caused by registration requirements. Same Day Registration means that eligible Americans can register when they go to the polls and cast their ballots. A national law was introduced this year, and we’ve created a petition to demand action to bring Same Day Registration to every state on the occasion of this important anniversary.

Photo by DH Parks via Creative Commons license

The state ranked “44th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia for voter participation” in 2012. The low turnout was attributed to Hurricane Sandy, as well as other convenience issues.

“After Hurricane Sandy strained voters and poll workers last November, we all recognize that change to our election system is vital,” said Diana Kasdan, senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice. “Fortunately, one part of the solution, early voting, has a proven track record. It is already available in more than half of the country, hugely popular and benefits election officials and voters alike.”

The bill, voted on party lines, would provide early voting 15 days before Election Day in general elections and eight days in primary and special elections.

“This legislation will make it more convenient for workers with long commutes as well as seniors,” said Chair of the Election Law Committee Michael Cusick. “It will also alleviate confusion and strain at the polls on Election Day evidenced by the fact that almost 30 percent of voters, nationally, chose to utilize early voting in presidential elections.”

Governor Andrew Cuomo reportedly supports early voting in New York.

Photo by Mr. Jincks via Creative Commons

A new report today from the Associated Press shows that the 2012 national election was historic due to changes in which Americans voted.

“America’s blacks voted at a higher rate than other minority groups in 2012 and by most measures surpassed the white turnout for the first time ….”  These data show that black Americans are voting at levels much closer to the numbers who can vote and turned out stronger than whites in the last election.

“Unlike other minority groups, the rise in voting for the slow-growing black population is due to higher turnout. While blacks make up 12 percent of the share of eligible voters, they represented 13 percent of total 2012 votes cast, according to exit polling. That was a repeat of 2008, when blacks ‘outperformed’ their eligible voter share for the first time on record.”

The report goes on to examine different demographic groups and how they participate in voting.

The big, big news is that the electorate is becoming more diverse and more representational as minority populations are increasingly participating as voters. Project Vote has worked for many years to achieve a more representational electorate. Our argument is that as more voices are heard, our elected leaders will be more representative of the population. But, there is still a long way to go with over 50 million Americans still not registered to vote.

Photo by League of Women Voters of California via Creative Commons license