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In 2015, Oregon made news when it took the concept of Motor Voter further. When citizens turn eighteen, the state now automatically registers most of them using driver’s license and state identification information. When a citizen moves, the voter rolls are updated when the license is updated. While this policy has been controversial, with some arguing that private information may become public or that Oregon is moving toward mandatory voting, automatic registration is consistent with the state’s efforts to increase registration and turnout.
Russell Berman, “Should Voter Registration Be Automatic?”
Atlantic , 20 March 2015; Maria L. La Ganga, “Under New Oregon Law, All Eligible Voters are Registered Unless They Opt Out,”
Los Angeles Times , 17 March 2015.
Oregon’s example offers a possible solution to a recurring problem for states—maintaining accurate voter registration rolls. During the 2000 election, in which George W.
Bush won Florida’s electoral votes by a slim majority, attention turned to the state’s election procedures and voter registration rolls. Journalists found that many states, including Florida, had large numbers of phantom voters on their rolls, voters had moved or died but remained on the states’ voter registration rolls.
“’Unusable’ Voter Rolls,”
Wall Street Journal , 7 November 2000. The
Help America Vote Act of 2002 (HAVA) was passed in order to reform voting across the states and reduce these problems. As part of the Act, states were required to update voting equipment, make voting more accessible to the disabled, and maintain computerized voter rolls that could be updated regularly.
“One Hundred Seventh Congress of the United States of America at the Second Session,” 23 January 2002. http://www.eac.gov/assets/1/workflow_staging/Page/41.PDF.
Over a decade later, there has been some progress. In Louisiana, voters are placed on ineligible lists if a voting registrar is notified that they have moved or become ineligible to vote. If the voter remains on this list for two general elections, his or her registration is cancelled. In Oklahoma, the registrar receives a list of deceased residents from the Department of Health.
“Voter List Accuracy,”11 February 2014. http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-list-accuracy.aspx Twenty-nine states now participate in the
Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck Program , which allows states to check for duplicate registrations.
Brad Bryant and Kay Curtis, eds. December 2013. “Interstate Crosscheck Program Grows,” http://www.kssos.org/forms/communication/canvassing_kansas/dec13.pdf. At the same time, Florida’s use of the federal
Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database has proven to be controversial, because county elections supervisors are allowed to remove voters deemed ineligible to vote.
Troy Kinsey, “Proposed Bills Put Greater Scrutiny on Florida’s Voter Purges,”
Bay News , 9 November 2015.
Despite these efforts, a study commissioned by the
Pew Charitable Trust found twenty-four million voter registrations nationwide were no longer valid.
Pam Fessler, “Study: 1.8 Million Dead People Still Registered to Vote,”
National Public Radio, 14 February 2013; “Report: Inaccurate, Costly, an Inefficient,”
The Pew Charitable Trusts , February 14, 2012. Pew is now working with eight states to update their voter registration rolls and encouraging more states to share their rolls in an effort to find duplicates.
Fessler, “Study: 1.8 Million Dead People Still Registered to Vote.”
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