Voter Registration

Needed -- a 21st century voter registration system for California

gbain — Tue, 31 May 2011 09:29:04 -0700

The world looks to California for 21st century innovation, especially for the application of technology that makes life less costly and more efficient.

Californians are well into the 21st century, working in the cloud, using smart phones and tablet computers, and getting their entertainment on-demand by satellite. But when it comes to voter registration, California seems to be stuck in the 18th century. State law won't allow eligible citizens in our state to register online until at least 2015 -- and maybe much later.

Fortunately, Californians may not need to wait much longer. A bill that would allow for online voter registration as soon as 2012 is making its way through the state Senate. SB397 would allow counties throughout the state to implement online voter registration systems for eligible citizens who already have a valid California driver's license or state identification card. In order to be available to eligible Californians before the next major election cycle, however, SB397 would need to be passed immediately. The bill's fate rests in the hands of the state Senate.

Online voter registration will not only increase the number of Californians who are registered to vote but, if done well, might also increase voter turnout in future elections. At this time, there are approximately 6.4 million eligible Californians who are not registered to vote. Allowing online registration will vastly simplify the registration process for those individuals. Permitting online registration in California will also generate significant cost savings -- a boon to state and local governments struggling with dwindling budgets.

States like Arizona and Washington have successfully adopted proposals similar to SB397. Both states have realized significant cost savings: Washington estimated a savings of $176,000 in its first year after implementing online voter registration, and Maricopa County, Ariz., reported saving more than $1 million since implementing online registration five years ago. There is no doubt that California counties will experience similar savings once online registration is put in place for voters.

Finally, online registration will enhance the security of the existing registration process. Only eligible citizens with a driver's license or state identification card would be able to register online. These eligible citizens would provide their information securely online, and then county election officials would verify that information using an independent state-run database matched against the DMV records. Once a DMV record is located for the registrant, the same signature that the eligible citizen provided to the DMV would be used by the election official as the registration signature for the voter registration record.

California needs online registration in time for the 2012 elections. We cannot wait any longer to elevate our 18th century registration system to one that can serve the needs of voters in the 21st century. We urge legislators to put California on the track of innovation and election modernization. Pass SB397.

State of the Nation

gbain — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:54:55 -0700

Voter registration is the backbone of the American electoral system. Registration problems create barriers to voting and make it difficult for administrators to communicate with voters, identify voters at the polls, and audit elections after the fact. Reforms following the 2000 election sought to improve the accuracy and currency of the voter-registration lists. Most important, all states now have statewide voter files. So how good are the files today?

This summer the Institute for Quantitative Social Sciences at Harvard University and the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project issued the first comprehensive, nationwide analysis of the quality of information stored on voter registration lists.

The graph below shows the results. Based on data compiled by Catalist—a political-data vendor that supports Democrat-leaning organizations but has effectively compiled a national voter registration database without partisan influence—the figure depicts the proportion of registration records that are “unmailable.” Either the registrant has moved or died, or the listed address is invalid.

Nationwide, approximately 1 in 16 entries on the registration lists is unmailable. The magnitude of the problem varies greatly throughout the country. In California, Massachusetts, and Washington, D.C., about 1 in 50 entries is problematic, but in Arkansas, that number is 1 in 5.

Election Day Voter Registration in Iowa

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:26:16 -0700

We have analyzed the likely impact of adoption of election day registration (EDR) by the state of Iowa. Consistent with existing research on the impact of EDR in other circumstances, we find that EDR would likely lead to substantial increases in voter turnout. We are able to offer the following estimates of increases in turnout for Iowa, and for specific groups of Iowans under EDR:

Overall turnout could go up by 4.9 percent.
Turnout among those aged 18 to 25 could increase by 10.7 percent under EDR.
Turnout for those who have moved in the last six months could increase by 8.8 percent under EDR.
Turnout for Latinos could increase by 9.5 percent, and for African-Americans turnout could increase by 6.6 percent under EDR.
Turnout among recently naturalized citizens could increase by as much as 20.2 percent.

Final Report: Oct '06 VTP Conference on Voter Registration & Authentication

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:22:59 -0700

No abstract available.

Voter Removal from Registration List Based on Name Matching is Unreliable

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:17:12 -0700

The voter registration list is the information backbone for the administration of elections. Keeping it up-to-date is a difficult task that can expose officials to accusations of voter disenfranchisement. We review here some of the problems that affected Florida elections, explore some solutions proposed with the Help America Vote Act of 2002 in regards to voter registration maintenance, and illustrate these with an experiment on the actual voter rolls from Florida.

The Introduction of Voter Registration and Its Effect on Turnout

admin — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 12:44:14 -0700

Studies of voter turnout across states ﬁnd that those with more facilitative registration laws have higher turnout rates. Eliminating registration barriers altogether is estimated to raise voter participation rates by up to 10%. This article presents panel estimates of the effects of introducing registration that exploits changes in registration laws and turnout within states. New York and Ohio imposed registration requirements on all of their counties in 1965 and 1977, respectively. We ﬁnd that the introduction of registration to counties that did not previously require registration decreased participation over the long term by three to ﬁve percentage points. Though signiﬁcant, this is lower than estimates of the effects of registration from cross-sectional studies and suggests that expectations about the effects of registration reforms on turnout may be overstated.

How Hard Can It Be: Do Citizens Think It Is Difficult to Register to Vote?

admin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:52:40 -0700

Political equality is seen as an intrinsic normative principle for the adequate functioning of a democratic republic. However, it is well documented that in the United States there are many qualified citizens who do not vote, many who do not participate in the political process due to procedural barriers that make it difficult or impossible for them to register and vote. Despite this, there is debate in the research literature about whether additional procedural reforms that seek to make the voter registration process easier will lead to substantial increases in voter participation in elections in the United States. While we do not enter into that research debate, we examine a related question: what are the perceptions of the American public about how hard or easy it is to register to vote in their state? Our assumption is that future reforms that seek to make the voter registration process easier will need substantial public support, and thus it is important to understand public perceptions regarding the usability of the voter registration process.

Our research, based on a randomly-selected sample of American adults interviewed by telephone in January 2006, indicates that some think it is difficult to register in their state, as 10% of survey respondents stated that the voter registration process in their state was difficult. This implies that an estimated 21 million American adults believe that the voter registration process is difficult in their state. We see also that younger voters, those who are not registered to vote, and political independents are especially likely to believe that the voter registration process is difficult in their state. We focus on younger voters in our analysis reported below because they are one group that research has shown is affected by voter registration procedures. But as nearly 87% of the adults in our sample said that they thought the voter registration process was easy, we conclude that efforts to reform the registration process to make it easier for eligible citizens should be carefully targeted at the segments of the population who find the existing process the most difficult.

Voter Registration: Past, Present, and Future

admin — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:30:00 -0700

The Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project identified problems with voter registration as a pressing problem in the 2000 presidential election; between 1.5 and 3 million votes were lost due to voter registration problems in that election. Voter registration is a central component of the election management process in the United States, and is an important foundation for how elections are administered. There have been two major efforts to reform voter registration practices at the federal level in recent decades, and despite those reforms there are still significant short and long term issues regarding voter registration practices in the United States. These issues include:

Continuing to find new ways to make the voter registration process easier for eligible citizens while also making the process more secure
Fixing provisional balloting
Scrutinizing computerized statewide voter registration files
Carefully studying HAVA voter registration requirements and how they work

American Elections: A Critical Moment for Research and Reform

admin — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:27:19 -0700

The 2004 election provided important lessons regarding the performance of voting technology, about continuing problems with voter registration and provisional balloting, issues with procedures and poll site voting practices, and raised questions about the liberalization of early and absentee voting. There are a series of important issues that should be the focus of the election research and reform agenda in coming years:

Developing and implementing statewide voter registration databases
Improving poll site practices
Should ballot casting be tied to geography?
Electronic voting security, integrity, and reliability
Internet registration and voting
Achieving a more open and auditable election administration process
Understanding the preferences and perceptions of the consumers of election administration products -- citizens and voters

Making Voting Easier: Election Day Registration in New York

admin — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 14:31:57 -0700

As policy makers, election officials, and the public consider whether New York should change the way in which voters are allowed to register to participate in elections, and bring New York State election law into compliance with the Help America Vote Act, we provide an analysis of the potential impact of election dar registration (EDR) in New York. The current system of registration is one in which citizens must register 25 days before election day in order to be eligible to vote. Under EDR this advance registration barrier would be eliminated as citizens could register on election day.

It is important to note that our analysis of the effects of EDR on turnout is based on the experiences of other EDR states, which allow same day registration at the polling place. A legislative proposal currently under consideration in New York (A.5762) would require voters to register on election day at a location other than the polling place. Hence, the actual impact on turnout of EDR in New York is likely to be less than the estimates we report here. This is because EDR in New York would entail two steps: reistration at a local board of elections, and then casting a ballot at the appropriate local polling place. A second bill (A.5800) would rescind the current state constitution requirement that voter registration take place at least 10 days before elections.

Our findings may be broadly categorized in three ways. First, EDR should help increase voter registration and turnout in New York. In particular, our analysis finds that adjusting for the effects of age, mobility, and many other factors, New York could see its long-run turnout rate increase by as much as 8.6 percentage points in presidential elections. This means that turnout in the 2000 presidential election in New York could have been as high as 59 percent if EDR has been in place.

Second, EDR is likely to make voting easier for citizens who have the most difficulty maintaining an up-to-date voter registration record in New York. Our analysis predicts as much as:

A 12.3 percentage point increase in turnout by 18-to-25-year-olds
A 9.8 percentage point increase in turnout by those with a grade school education or less
An 11 point increase in turnout by Latinos and an 8.7 percentage point increase in turnout by African Americans
A 10.1 percentage point increase in turnout by those who have lived at their current address for less than six months
A 12.2 percentage point increase in turnout by naturalized citizens

Third, New York could mitigate or avoid the problems commonly advanced by EDR opponents: added burdens on election administration, cost, and potential voter fraud. We address these concerns below. We show that states like Minnesota and Wisconsin that currently use EDR have developed effective laws and procedures that serve to minimize or eliminate these problems. We argue that should New York move to EDR, it too could mitigate or eliminate these problems through effective laws and procedures. And there is no reason to believe that implementation, as described in A.5762, would lead to increased voter fraud.