Welcome to the return of our war on voting series, a joint project of Meteor Blades and Joan McCarter.
In last week's revival of WoV, Meteor Blades highlighted Ari Berman's must-read Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, a reading-list recommendation I heartily endorse. He also blurbed the release of a report from the Brennan Center, The Case for Automatic, Permanent Voter Registration arguing for a voter registration modernization system with four components: "1) states should adopt electronic systems and ensure that citizens are automatically added to the voter rolls when they interact with government agencies; 2) make sure that voters stay registered when they move within a state; 3) allow citizens to register to vote online; 4) allow people to register or update their information at the polls." A follow-up report from them focuses on "examining modern voter registration systems—determining how they work, why they’re beneficial, and how states implement them." Their topline findings:
- States continue to implement modernized voting systems. A total of 38 states now have electronic registration, online registration, or both. Electronic registration is available in 27 states, and 26 states have online options. In 2010, when the Brennan Center first studied these systems in depth, 17 states electronically registered voters, and only 6 allowed citizens to sign up online. As states continue to adopt modernized techniques, they speed up the process of registering voters.
- Modernization boosts registration rates. In one data sample, 14 of 16 states with electronic registration saw sustained or increased registration rates at DMV offices through the 2014 election. For example, since Pennsylvania eliminated paper registration at DMVs in 2005, registration rates at the DMV have more than quadrupled. Online registration is also popular with voters. In 11 of the 14 states that had online voter registration in 2012, online registrations accounted for more than 10 percent of all new sign-ups between 2010 and 2012.
- Electronic and online registration increase voter roll accuracy. Election officials in almost every state interviewed reported that both electronic and online registration made their systems more accurate because staff no longer need to interpret illegible handwriting or manually enter voter information, thus reducing the chances for errors.
- Modernized voter registration systems save money. Not all states attempted to track cost savings, but of the 29 states that reported they did, there was unanimity that electronic and online registration reduces costs. Washington State, for example, saves 25 cents with each online registration.
There are plenty of alternatives to protecting the vote to voter suppression—that is if the goal is truly having a modern, fraud-proof system. Of course, we know that that's not the goal of most Republican lawmakers. Their goal is voter suppression. It's important, however, not just to fight their efforts but to also champion ways of truly protecting and expanding the vote.
Below, you'll find some briefs as to what's happened this week in the war on voting.
- Activists at Duke University hold a student voting teach-in, highlighting the challenges—and there are many in North Carolina—students face in trying to vote. The teach-in "centered around the history of voter suppression in North Carolina and discussed how Duke factors into North Carolina’s electoral landscape," and then participants "developed strategies to help students make it to the polls next year." That's a proactive effort to fight voter registration that college campuses everywhere should be following.
- Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is using his brand-new, unprecedented prosecutorial power to prosecute three Kansans for voter fraud. One, 64-year-old Lincoln L. Wilson, could be facing a year in prison, because he's been charged with a felony. He knowingly voted in both Kansas and Colorado, but since he wasn't voting in a federal elections and casting multiple votes for president, and that "he did not understand that he could not vote in two states because neither state’s voter registration form was a federal form." The other two who face misdemeanor charges are Steven Gaedtke, 60, and Betty Gaedtke, 61. They similarly "did not understand that they were doing anything wrong because they weren’t voting for the same candidates twice" in 2010, when they voted absentee in Kansas and in person in Arkansas, where they'd just finished building a retirement home and where they were on election day. These are the dangerous voters Kobach and his ilk are so concerned about committing fraud.
- Both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton blasted the now-reversed decision by the state of Alabama to close 31 DMV offices—where voters could get the necessary state IDs for voting—in primarily black counties. "Republican cowards all across the country, including Alabama, are very clearly trying to win elections by suppressing the vote and making it harder for low-income people, minorities, young people and seniors to vote," Sanders said in a statement. Both Democratic front-runners are making this an issue in their campaigns, which will help keep the fight at the forefront in this election, where it needs to be.
- Milwaukee County is doing its part to blunt Gov. Scott Walker's voter suppression laws. "The Milwaukee County Board Committee on Finance, Personnel, and Audit on Thursday, October 29th approved a budget amendment that requires the Milwaukee County Transit System to develop a proposal to arrange free bus rides for people traveling to receive voter identification documents or registering to vote." The County Board will finalize and vote on adopting the budget Monday, November 9.