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The 2024 presidential election is upon us, and this year’s race is proving to be yet another close one.
Both Democrats and Republicans hope their constituents show up at the polls, but the fact of the matter is, Americans who are eligible to vote have a poor record of showing up on election day.
While the 2020 presidential election had one of the highest voter turnouts, according to Pew Research Center, approximately 66% of the voting-eligible population showed up to the polls.
Low voter turnout can be the result of numerous reasons that may or may not be able to be resolved, but one thing we can do is ensure the number of people who are eligible to vote are registered. And in order to do that we need to implement automatic voter registration (AVR) across the United States.
Automatic voter registration is the process in which eligible individuals are automatically registered to vote when they interact with a government agency, such as the Department of Motor Vehicles, unless they decline.
Their information is then electronically transferred to election officials, which eliminates paperwork and opportunities for clerical errors.
AVR makes voter registration “opt-out” rather than a traditional “opt-in” option. Switching to an opt-out method removes barriers for those who might have difficulty with a lack of access to registration offices or missing deadlines.
In 1993, Congress enacted the National Voter Registration Act which allowed individuals to register to vote while obtaining their driver’s license. However, it wouldn’t be for another 23 years until we saw what we know today as AVR.
Oregon became the first state to implement an AVR policy. Those who interacted with the DMV or Oregon Health Authority were sent a post-transaction mailer asking if they would like to opt-out. This became known as back-end AVR.
On the other hand, front-end AVR automatically enrolls individuals, but allows them to opt-out when directly dealing with the government agency.
We complain about who is in office, but the only way to change that is to vote. And if we don’t all vote because we aren’t all registered, how are things supposed to change?
Currently, 24 states plus Washington D.C. have an AVR policy. Michigan and New Mexico recently passed legislature that will implement AVR beginning in 2025, according to Movement Advancement Project.
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