Get People to Vote !

During the 2016 US presidential election, only 55.7% of those of us eligible to vote actually did so. This mediocre turn-out puts us at a miserable 27th out of 34 advanced countries.

Yet, many politicians want to suppress our vote even further. In states like Wisconsin, a battery of laws have been enacted to aggressively cut the number of people going to the polls. Restrictive voter ID laws, cuts to early voting, voter-roll purges, restrictions on voter registration policies, and longer residency requirements have all done their part to make it more difficult to cast our ballots. In just 2017 alone, 99 bills were introduced in thirty-one states to restrict our right to vote.

These voter suppression laws have been pretty effective. A UW-Madison study indicated that Wisconsin's restrictive voter-ID laws deterred at least 16,800 Wisconsin citizens from voting in 2016 in Madison and Milwaukee alone. (In the interest of full disclosure, I worked at the Germantown polls for several years, but ended my service when the state's new ID law went into effect. I had volunteered to help people vote, not to keep them from voting!)

However, not all is grim. Unlike Wisconsin, a growing number of states are actually making it easier for people to vote. Ten states and DC have enacted laws to automatically register citizens to vote when they obtain or renew a driver's license. The few who, for some reason, do not want to be on the voter rolls can opt-out of registration.

Oregon led the nation by implementing the first automatic registration in March 2015. California followed close behind in October 2015. In 2016, West Virginia, Vermont, Alaska, Connecticut, Georgia, and DC jumped on the bandwagon. In 2017, Colorado, Rhode Island, and Illinois implemented the idea. Just last week, automatic voter registration passed both houses of the Washington state legislature, and their Governor is expected to sign it into law. Many other states are on the verge of passing automatic registration.

Automatic registration is different than the national "Motor-Voter" law that went into effect in 1995. That law states that eligible people must be provided with an opportunity to register to vote when they apply for or renew a driver's license or apply for public assistance. (Because Wisconsin has same-day registration, we are one of the few states to be exempted from this law). Motor-voter allows a convenient way to register, but people must opt-in to register. By contrast, automatic registration registers everyone who does not opt-out.

Wisconsin could have been a leader in this election reform. As early as 2010, automatic voter registration legislation was considered by our legislature, but did not pass.

Another automatic voter registration bill was introduced in 2015 by Reps.Genrich and Berceau and Sen. Hansen. Based on the consistent actions by the Wisconsin Republican Majority to repress the vote, it is highly unlikely that such a common-sense reform could ever make it past those currently in charge.

A 2017 House Bill to bring automatic registration nationwide was co-sponsored by Representatives Ron Kind, Mark Pocan, and Gwen Moore. The bill has gone to committee limbo, where it will likely stay until we again get a Democratic majority.

Automatic voter registration has been an astounding success in states where it has been implemented. If passed in every state, automatic voter registration would add as many as 50 million additional voters to the rolls. 

If automatic registration is combined with other common-sense reforms like mail-in ballots, abolition of voter-ID, shorter voting wait times, and nationwide suffrage for ex-felons, the poor voting turn-outs we see in American can be fixed. The more people who participate in our elections, the stronger our democracy will be.