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In the recent past, automatic voter registration was a familiar policy in many advanced democracies, but not in the United States. Slowly but surely, however, the idea is gaining traction on American soil.
CBS News reported late last week on the latest state to join the growing club.
Minnesota’s Democrat Gov. Tim Walz on Friday signed the “Democracy for the People Act” into law, a sweeping bill aimed at expanding access to the polls that includes long-sought after provisions from voting rights advocates. The legislation implements automatic voter registration, allows 16- and 17-year-olds to pre-register to vote, and creates a permanent absentee voter list that will automatically send people who sign up a ballot each election.
“Today is a great day for democracy,” the Democratic governor declared. “The ballot is the most powerful thing we have. Your voice is in your ballot. And if you don’t have access to that or it’s made more difficult, your voice is stifled.”
According to Minnesota’s secretary of state’s office, there are roughly 575,000 eligible voters in the Land of 10,000 Lakes who are currently unregistered. The newly signed “Democracy for the People Act” is expected to move many of them onto the voter rolls.
A report in the Pioneer Press in St. Paul, applications for the following would result in automatic voter registration:
- New or renewed driver’s license or state identification card.
- Initial or renewal application for MinnesotaCare or Medical Assistance.
- Application for benefits or services to another participating agency.
If the overall tally from the National Conference of State Legislatures is correct, Minnesota is the 23rd state, plus the District of Columbia, to adopt AVR.
Not bad for a policy that didn’t exist in any state as recently as eight years ago.
Revisiting our previous coverage, I’ve long believed this is a policy that’s tough to argue against. When it comes to registering to vote in the United States, the burden has traditionally been on the individual: If you’re eligible to vote, it’s up to you to take the proactive steps needed to register. Automatic voter registration, which already exists in many of the world’s democracies, flips that model.
The idea is exactly what it sounds like: Under the policy, states automatically register eligible voters who interact with state agencies, shifting the burden away from the individual. Those who want to withdraw from the system can do so voluntarily without penalty, but otherwise, Americans in these states are simply added to the voters rolls as a matter of course.
As of today, it’s reached nearly half of the nation’s states. The holdouts tend to be Republican strongholds, led by GOP officials who are generally reluctant to open up the electoral process, but AVR advocates continue to made progress in ways that were tough to predict in the recent past.
Postscript: At the federal level, it’s worth noting that automatic voter registration was a key element of the Democrats’ “For the People Act,” which Republicans derailed in the last Congress. When that bill failed, Democrats tried again with a more narrowly tailored “Freedom to Vote Act,” which also included automatic voter registration, and which GOP senators also used a filibuster to defeat.
This post revises our related earlier coverage.