Recent Steps May Bring State Back Into Compliance After Years of Neglecting the National Voter Registration Act

January 28, 2008

Washington, D.C.— A new report by the voting rights organization Project Vote finds that Colorado has been failing to meet the requirement of a federal voting law—the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA)—that requires state agencies to offer voter registration services to citizens when they apply for public assistance. “Investigating Voting Rights in Colorado: An Assessment of Compliance with the National Voter Registration Act in Public Assistance Agencies” by Jody Herman and Douglas Hess documents the state’s consistently low rates of registration in public assistance offices despite Colorado’s significant population of unregistered low-income citizens. The authors show that noncompliance with the law accounts for such low rates.

Key findings from the report include:

• The number of voter registration applications coming from public assistance offices across the state has remained at a low level since the enactment of the NVRA in 1993.


• Of the 900,000 unregistered adult citizens in Colorado in 2006, 229,000 had household incomes below $25,000 and are likely to be in contact with public assistance offices.


• Voter registration performance at public assistance offices varies enormously from county to county. Some of the largest counties in Colorado reported zero voter registrations from their public assistance offices.


• Visits by Colorado ACORN to public assistance offices in El Paso, Denver, Arapahoe and Adams counties found numerous instances of non-compliance with the NVRA.

“Investigating Voting Rights in Colorado” examines alternative explanations for Colorado’s consistently low rates of registration at public assistance agencies and finds no evidence to support the conclusion that factors other than noncompliance are responsible.

“Colorado has a significant disparity in voter registration rates between affluent and low-income citizens,” said Jody Herman. “If the state had followed the requirements of the NVRA more diligently, the disparity in registration rates between rich and poor would likely be much less profound,” Herman said.

In December 2007, the Colorado Secretary of State’s office began to address the state’s neglect of the NVRA’s public agency registration requirements. Other states that have recently made compliance with this requirement a priority have experienced significant gains in public agency registration rates. One in 5 Iowans, for example, who access public assistance register to vote since that state took steps to improve compliance.