Automatic Voter Registration Could Fix New York’s Poor Voter Turnout
The League of Women Voters of White Plains presented a forum on Voting Issues and Reform in New York on April 19, offering an overview of voting issues in the 2016 election and a look at voting issues, especially low voter turnout in New York State.
The moderator for the forum, Sally Robinson, League of Women Voters New York (LWVNY), Vice President Issues and Advocacy, referred to a 2012 report conducted by the LWVNY that outlined many suggestions for the state, noting that New York is poor on voter reform and the five-year-old report still stands as the go-to document.
Thomas Lopez, Counsel on the voting rights team, Brennan Center for Justice; Jennifer Wilson, LWVNY, Director of Program and Policy; and New York State Assemblyman David Buchwald (D-White Plains) 93rd District, Chair subcommittee on Election Day Operations and Voter Disenfranchisement, member Committee on Election Law, spoke about voting issues from each of their perspectives.
Lopez, whose work at the Brennan Center gives him a national view, said there are several states with very strict photo ID laws, most notable being Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Ohio and Kansas. Legislation has been put forward to bring a photo ID law into New York, but Lopez said he does not see the bill going anywhere in the current political environment in New York State. He added that in some states with strict laws, the Brennan Center has identified definite patterns that indicate those laws were created to inhibit votes by members of minority groups.
With all the claims about voter fraud in the 2016 election, Lopez said actual voter fraud is “vanishingly rare.” There are adequate procedures in place to check voter registration, he said, adding that what needs to be done is to get people registered.
National statistics quoted by Lopez indicate there are 50 million unregistered voters in the United States, or one in four eligible citizens not registered to vote. In New York State 40% of adult citizens are not registered.
Lopez proposed that automatic voter registration (AVR) where any time a citizen registers with a government agency they are automatically registered to vote, be adopted in New York. “This is an opt-out rather than an opt-in program,” Lopez explained. He quoted a report by the PEW Research Center that found most people believe that when they register a change of address with the Post Office their voter registration is updated as well.
“This is not true,” Lopez said. “Many people find out they are not registered when they arrive at the polls to vote and find out their name is not on the rolls.”
California, Connecticut, Oregon, Vermont, West Virginia and Alaska currently have AVR. During the first month that AVR was in place in Connecticut more people were registered than in 2015, 2014, and 2013.
Lopez further indicated that AVR actually makes the rolls cleaner.
Wilson spends her time advocating for voter reform in New York by lobbying with members of the legislature. She advocates electronic, rather than printed poll books to help streamline the registration and sign-in process. Electronic registration would allow voters to register up to 10 days before Election Day, according to the New York State Constitution. A law passed by the Legislature changed that date to 25 days to accommodate the printing of the large rolls.
Assemblyman Buchwald said people should be involved in democracy at its core. He encourages New Yorkers to support NY Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s proposed Bill A53121, which includes 11 proposals addressing a range of voter topics including early voting in the state.
Buchwald promotes consolidating state primaries, but noted that when most election reform bills get to the state senate “that’s the end of them, unfortunately, as a fact point-of-view,” including proposals that would make the ballot easier to read.
Buchwald further noted that often, ethics and election reform proposals get into the budget process and disappear. “The budget process cannot be the be all and end all on advocacy for these issues,” he said. “There is no reason why we can’t pass legislation now and then tie it up to next year’s budget.”
All the panelists agreed that New York needs to update its voting machines. “Forty-two states are using 10-year-old or more equipment, but people are not making this a priority,” Lopez said.
They all agreed AVR should be pursued in New York and around the country.
