AUTOMATIC
VOTER REGISTRATION
SYNOPSIS:
About 25% of adult citizens of the USA are not
registered to vote.
This can be corrected by making election-officials responsible
for getting as many citizens
as possible onto the voting-rolls.
About 50 million American citizens 18 years of age and older
can and should be registered to vote.
This will be a shift in policy from voluntary voter-registration,
which depends upon each eligible voter taking specific actions
to be recorded as a voter in a certain location.
Several methods of identifying citizens who should
be registered
include motor-voter registration (when being licensed to drive),
correlating names and addresses with the Social Security
Administration,
using the United States Postal Service to identify non-voters,
& collecting names at birth for later automatic registration.
Automatic and universal voter registration will
reverse all attempts
to remove some
American citizens from the voting-rolls.
OUTLINE:
1.
MOTOR-VOTER REGISTRATION.
2.
COORDINATION WITH THE SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION.
3. THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE REACHES EVERYONE.
4. AUTOMATIC REGISTRATION AT BIRTH.
5. AUTOMATIC REGISTRATION IN HIGH SCHOOL.
6. SOME COUNTRIES HAVE MANDATORY VOTING.
7. LISTS OF REGISTERED VOTERS
WILL BE
MAINTAINED BY THE STATES
AND LATER BY THE NATIONAL
IDENTITY BUREAU.
8. NEW OPT-OUT CATEGORY: NON-VOTING CITIZENS.
9. NO MORE INVISIBLE CLASSES.
10.
AUTOMATIC REGISTRATION OF ALL PERSONS ARRESTED
AND
RESTORATION OF VOTING-RIGHTS AFTER PRISON.
11.
HOW AUTOMATIC VOTER REGISTRATION
PREVENTS
VOTER-SUPPRESSION.
12. REPEAL AND/OR REPLACE ALL VOTER-SUPPRESSION LAWS.
13. NO MORE CITIZENS STRUCK FROM THE VOTING-ROLLS.
14. A NEW VOTING RIGHTS ACT—LOOKING
FORWARD.
RESULT:
Readers
of this chapter will see ways they can help to achieve
universal and automatic registration of all citizens who consent.
Our democracy will be improved when more citizens
take part in selecting representatives at all levels of government.
AUTOMATIC
VOTER REGISTRATION
by James Leonard Park
1. MOTOR-VOTER REGISTRATION.
The most common proposal for getting everyone
registered to vote
is to register all adults when they apply for licenses to drive.
Each state sets its own age for the privilege of driving.
But the process does establish the date of birth of the driver
as well as the current living address.
These are the basic facts needed to register to vote.
Some people licensed to drive are not U.S. citizens.
These would include students from other nations
who have visas to pursue higher education in the USA.
Foreign students should be permitted to drive
if they can pass both the written and the on-the-road tests
to be licensed by the states where they live.
As citizens of other countries,
they would not be
registered to vote in the USA.
But all state motor-vehicle departments should keep
complete information about foreign nationals,
including their countries of citizenship.
Similarly, some states have decided to license
drivers
who are citizens of other countries who are living in the USA
without regard to their legal status in America.
These persons could be licensed to drive,
but unless they are citizens of the USA,
they will not be registered to vote.
Oregon has begun automatic voter-registration.
Oregon also conducts its elections by mail-in ballots.
And whenever a U.S. citizen gets a driver's license,
that person is also automatically
registered to vote
at the address also included on the driver's license.
Oregon allows citizens to opt-out
of voter-registration
when they are licensed to drive.
About 6% of Oregon drivers who are citizens of the USA
decide not to be
registered as voters.
A good policy would be to keep these non-registered
citizens
in the same data-base
as those who are automatically registered to vote.
Such a practice would probably encourage a few more people
to agree to be registered to vote.
The process of opting-out of voting does not make them anonymous.
They remain in the same data-base.
And at any future time they can change their minds
and agree to be registered to vote where they live.
This would diminish worries about being on 'government lists'.
Declining to become a registered voter
does not make one's name disappear from the data-base.
It merely puts one's name into a different category
—licensed
drivers who are not (yet) registered to vote in that state.
(Some drivers might have licenses to drive from more than one state.
But they must decide which
location is their voting residence.)
Citizenship is required for voting.
Being an American citizen is usually proven by a birth-certificate,
which shows the place of birth as within the United States
and one's parents as being U.S. citizens (if they are).
Children born outside of hospitals might not have birth-certificates.
But adults who have been voting for many years
should be assumed to
be citizens of the USA
unless and until some other
citizenship can be shown.
Naturalized citizens should have certificates
showing when they became American citizens.
Most motor-vehicle departments also issue identity
documents
similar to driver's licenses for people who cannot drive.
These would include adults who choose not to drive,
blind people, and all others who have disabilities
that prevent them from becoming licensed drivers.
When proofs of location of birth are not readily
available,
the burden of showing the actual location should rest with the state
—not
with the individual being registered to vote.
And if this individual has already been voting,
it should be assumed that he or she has a right to vote.
If at some later time a different citizenship-status is discovered,
then that individual should be immediately removed from the
voting-rolls.
2. COORDINATION WITH THE SOCIAL
SECURITY ADMINISTRATION.
Each state agency charged with voter-registration
should also work closely with the Social Security Administration,
which also has a very-extensive list of U.S. citizens.
Every person who works
in the USA
is supposed to have a Social Security Number (SSN)
or an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN).
When the Secretary of State (or other office
registering voters)
discovers someone living in that state
who is registered with the Social Security Administration
but who is not registered to
vote at the address of record,
then that citizen should be immediately added to the voting-rolls.
And the new registrant should be informed
of the registration and the location for voting.
Each citizen shall have only one
location for voting
even if he or she sometimes lives abroad
or in another home in the USA.
There might be a provision for
opting-out of
registration to vote.
If the citizen never intends to vote and does not want to be registered,
then his or her name and address can be added to the list of
citizens of the USA who decide not to be registered to
vote.
These non-voting citizens should be kept in the data-base
in case they change their minds at any future time
and agree to become registered voters.
3. THE UNITED STATES POSTAL
SERVICE REACHES EVERYONE.
The
USPS has the most complete list of all postal addresses in the USA.
Everyone living in America who has a stable location
(even some homeless persons who use the same shelter every night)
has a local postal address.
And each local letter-carrier knows the names
of almost all the people living on his or her route.
As most communication shifts from paper to
electronic means,
the USPS will have less mail to deliver each year.
But the USPS could
become the main point of contact
between the U.S. citizens (and non-citizens) and the U.S. government.
If and when Directory
USA
is created,
which would list every man, woman, & child living in America,
the local post office might be the most logical place
for citizens and non-citizens to be added to the national directory.
But even in the years before any such comprehensive
list is created,
the Postal Service could be used by the various Secretaries of State
as a means of letting all potential voters know how to register
themselves as voters where they are currently living.
Some states have changed to voting by mail.
In any case, the election official responsible for voter-registration
could send out a notice to ALL POSTAL PATRONS
telling them how and where to register to vote before each election.
This would remind people who have moved since the last election
to register themselves at their new address.
And it would give all non-registered citizens an opportunity
to add their names to the local list of voters.
Once Directory USA is created,
the election-officials of each state would have a ready-made list
of everyone living in that state
—U.S. citizens
and foreign nationals, voters and non-voters.
Since Directory USA will distinguish U.S. citizens
from citizens of other countries living in the USA,
it would be possible for the Secretaries of State
to send out targeted
messages to all non-registered U.S. citizens
before each election informing them
that they have been automatically registered to vote at this address.
And they should also be informed of their right to refuse registration.
And as said in other connections,
those few U.S. citizens who refuse to be registered as voters
should still be kept on all lists as citizens
who can change their minds at any time to become registered voters.
Once Directory USA has listed the names and status
of all persons,
registration to vote in a certain location will be
recorded.
The state election-authorities should be in daily communication
with Directory USA to enter all changes-of-address
and to make certain that names are immediately removed from all rolls
when any individual dies or permanently leaves the United States.
Not every postal patron will be registered to vote
at that location.
Directory USA will clarify exactly which address is the voting
location.
Some voters receive mail at office addresses
and/or at other homes or cabins where they sometimes reside.
More than one million
individuals
are now registered to vote in more than one location.
Directory USA will eliminate all excess registrations.
Just as the U.S. Postal Service is the first to know
about any change-of-address within the USA,
so the USPS also knows when someone has moved to another country.
Because the USPS serves everyone living in the USA
every week,
it might be the best agency to keep track of individuals
who are registered to vote or who should be registered as
voters.
Later, Directory USA will become the basic location for these facts.
Local letter-carriers will have on-line access to
Directory
USA,
which will enable them to confirm addresses, deaths, name-changes, etc.
Each letter-carrier is responsible for only a few hundred people.
Some rural areas and Indian Reservations have no
street addresses.
But these individuals still do receive mail delivered by the USPS.
Even unconventional mailing addresses (eg lacking street numbers)
should be used for voter-registration.
Each adult U.S. citizen is authorized to vote in one geographical
location.
4. AUTOMATIC REGISTRATION AT BIRTH.
Because U.S.
citizenship is now granted at
birth
to anyone born within the USA and its territories,
then the citizenship of each baby born can be registered
right along with all of the other facts of this birth.
Babies born to American mothers abroad
are also automatically American citizens.
Baby-citizens cannot vote, of course,
but they will remain on the list until 18 years later,
when they will automatically
be registered to vote
at the address where they are living at that time.
A mailing-address check can be made by the USPS.
If this person is living at a known address when he or she becomes 18,
that is the address at which he or she will be registered to vote.
And once again, there might be provisions
for any citizen to decline to be registered as a voter.
If this 18-year-old citizen of the USA declines to be registered,
then his or her name and address will be kept in the same data-base
just in case he or she decides at some later time to become a voter.
5.
AUTOMATIC REGISTRATION IN HIGH SCHOOL.
Not all American citizens complete high school,
but the vast majority of American eighteen-year olds
can be found enrolled in public or private high schools.
Voting-officials should have access to
the rolls of each school
that has students who are 18 years old (or who will soon be 18).
Should there be an annual assembly about voter-registration?
Some of these high school students were registered at
birth,
but many of them have moved at least once during
childhood.
Thus, if they are already registered as
citizens-too-young to vote,
their addresses can be verified or updated
so that they will automatically be registered to vote where they live
when they become 18 years of age.
High-school registration could include students too young to vote.
But their names would be in the data-base with their addresses.
And when they turn 18, an automatic registration will be entered.
Each will be informed of this registration by U.S. mail
at his or her address of record.
And if the letter is not returned because the addressee is unknown,
and if the citizen does not object,
this citizen will be registered to vote at that address.
These young adults will also be offered
the option of registering as non-voting citizens.
This will not make them anonymous.
Rather, they will remain in the same data-base as the voters,
but their decision to reject the right-to-vote will be noted.
And, of course, they will be free to become voters
at any later time in their lives.
6. SOME COUNTRIES HAVE MANDATORY
VOTING.
The United States of America might not
require all citizens
to vote.
But the fact that some other countries punish non-voters with a fine
shows that they do have universal
voter-registration.
Probably no harms have come to any
registered voter
simply because his or her name appears on the voting-rolls.
About 20 countries have compulsory voting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compusory_voting
The methods other countries use to make certain
that all adult citizens are registered to vote
might be adapted for the United States of America.
What additional methods could be useful
to make certain that every American above 18 is registered to vote?
7. LISTS OF REGISTERED VOTERS
WILL BE
MAINTAINED BY THE STATES
AND LATER BY
THE NATIONAL
IDENTITY BUREAU.
Because in the USA, voter-registration is a state
responsibility,
the voters in each state will all be registered in that state.
And when voters have more than one residence,
they must inform all states
where they have homes
exactly which residence is their voting location.
Under U.S. law, they can
vote in only one place,
even if they might have deep roots in more than one community.
One way to avoid double-voting is to have a national
data-base,
—perhaps
Directory
USA—which
will list every man, woman, & child
living anywhere in the United State.
This national directory will distinguish citizens of the USA
from citizens of other countries.
(And it will also clarify who has dual citizenship.)
Only citizens of the USA will be registered to vote.
All others (such as children too young to vote)
will also be included
in Directory USA,
but their listings will show that they are not (yet) registered to
vote.
Especially with early-voting and vote-by-mail,
some voters with more than one residence
will be sorely tempted
to vote more than once.
Voting in two different states was more difficult
when the voter was required to show up at the polls on election
day.
A national directory of all persons living in the USA
—which
will name the one voting residence of each registered voter—
will be an easy way to make certain that each voter has only one
vote.
The most common forms of voter-fraud
will probably result from ballots returned in the U.S. mail.
Who actually marked the ballot? Was it secret?
Were nursing-home administrators voting for patients
who should no longer be voting
because they have lost the capacity to understand what voting means?
Did any voter receive and return ballots for more than one location?
Did anyone vote in person in one location and by mail in another?
Was
the same voter registered with more than one name?
Did
others at the same address
continue to return ballots for voters who have died?
A few countries already have complete lists of
residents:
Denmark, Norway, Finland, Iceland, & Israel.
Voting is only one of the functions
of having a comprehensive list of all citizens and non-citizens.
Other functions include health-care and census.
8. NEW OPT-OUT CATEGORY: NON-VOTING CITIZENS.
Citizens
of the USA will probably not
be required to register to vote.
But opting-out of registration and voting
should not be used as a method of disappearing from 'government lists'.
As said before, citizens who decline
to be registered to vote
should nevertheless be kept in the same data-base with registered
voters.
Once automatic voter-registration comes into effect,
about 5% of American citizens might decline to register as voters.
The data-base that lists all voters for a specific district
should also include other U.S. citizens living there
who have declined to register
themselves as voters.
Sometimes people have rejected registration to
vote
as a way to avoid jury-duty.
This is an unfortunate and perverse incentive.
But it can be corrected by requiring
all citizens
to be available for jury-duty,
without regard to their voter registration.
Non-voting citizens should be
in the same pool:
citizens who might be called upon to serve on juries.
Also, creating this new category for non-voting
citizens
will help to clarify the statistics for everywhere in the USA.
If we set the goal of having at least 90% of all citizens registered,
this number should include the small percentage of non-voting citizens,
who are registered and counted as citizens nevertheless.
For example, states that begin with the letter M
have the highest rates of voter-registration:
Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, & Mississippi.
These states have more than 70% of all their U.S. citizens registered.
Minnesota usually has the highest rate of voter-turnout.
If
5% of the U.S. citizens living in any of these states
decide they never want to vote,
they should be counted as non-voting citizens.
Including these non-voters, how long will it take
to get 100% of American citizens listed as voters or non-voters?
Also, the opt-out list of all citizens who refuse to
vote
would be the logical place for all get-out-the-vote efforts:
These names and addresses show people
who could possibly be added to the list of all voters in any state.
How could we get them to agree to join the voting-rolls?
Hawaii has the lowest percentage of registered
voters:
Only slightly more than half of all U.S. citizens living in Hawaii
are registered to vote.
Automatic voter-registration will have a large impact on
Hawaii.
9. NO MORE INVISIBLE CLASSES.
When non-voters are asked why they do not want to register,
they usually give socially-acceptable reasons such as:
All politicians are corrupt.
I do not like any of the candidates.
I am not interested in politics or government.
I do not have time to go to the polls.
But a factor not usually mentioned
is the desire to remain
invisible to government.
Citizens who refuse to register as voters might have hoped
that this would keep them off
all government rolls.
About
10% of
all economic activity in the USA is underground.
Citizens who are engaged in unregistered or illegal commerce
might hope to remain unknown
by all government agencies
if they do not register to vote.
However, if we register of all
persons living in the USA,
then the status of invisible
residents will become impossible.
If they are American citizens and if they refuse to register as voters,
they will nevertheless be registered as non-voting citizens.
And if they are not citizens
of the USA,
they will still be registered in Directory USA as foreign nationals.
Refusing to vote will not be a method of avoiding
taxation.
Everyone will be listed in Directory USA.
And if they are of between 20-70 years of age,
they will be expected to have some way of supporting themselves.
Hence, the IRS will expect an income-tax return.
Refusing
to register to vote does not make one disappear.
10. AUTOMATIC REGISTRATION OF ALL
PERSONS ARRESTED
AND
RESTORATION OF VOTING-RIGHTS AFTER PRISON.
As odd as it might seen to register everyone who is
arrested,
this will nevertheless be an additional way
to get eligible voters onto the voting-rolls.
Some criminal laws automatically take away the
right-to-vote
from anyone convicted of specific crimes.
If they were already registered to vote where they live,
their voting-rights will be suspended
for the term defined in law.
This will usually be during any time in prison,
followed by any time of probation that follows incarceration.
All arrested persons must be correctly identified.
This includes foreign nationals living in the USA,
either with permission
or without permission.
Foreign nationals living in America will also be listed in Directory
USA.
But they will be noted as not
having a right to vote
—at
least not in national elections.
Should the right-to-vote be returned to former
criminals
after they have served their time in prison
and any period of probation required after prison?
A uniform national system acknowledging voting-rights
might be needed to clarify present practices in the states.
And this national standard will probably be:
Once a convicted prisoner has completed the term in prison,
then voting rights will be automatically (re)established
after the probation has been completed without new violations.
The probation officer will
know where the ex-convict is living.
And when the period of probation is completed,
then that address will become the voting location
for this person newly (re)registered as a voter in the USA.
Receiving the notification of automatic
voter-registration
might become an important signal
that the ex-offender has now been restored to full citizenship.
11. HOW AUTOMATIC VOTER REGISTRATION
PREVENTS
VOTER-SUPPRESSION.
Because every citizen of voting age will
automatically be a voter
(except those who opt-out and become non-voting citizens
and those who lose their right-to-vote upon criminal conviction),
there will be no ways to write new laws
that favor one political party or another.
'Voter ID laws' were sometimes used
as a means
to favor one's own political party.
For example, what forms of picture IDs can prove
citizenship?
In Texas, having a license to carry a handgun was sufficient proof.
But a student ID issued by a college (even a state college) was not.
And even picture IDs proving employment by local government
were not sufficient to prove that one is a U.S. citizen.
Many studies have shown the difficulty some citizens have
in getting the documents to prove that they are citizens of the USA.
If you would like to check the current status of all
state ID laws, click:
http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id.aspx.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_laws_in_the_United_States.
More than half of the states of the USA have voter ID laws.
One way to prevent adverse consequences of new voter
ID laws
would be to delay the
requirements by a certain number of years.
Citizens who have been voting should continue to be allowed to vote.
And they should be given plenty of time to get the needed proofs.
Perhaps even a 10-year grace period should be included in ID laws.
During this period, both the
old rules and the new rules would apply.
And after 10 years, perhaps Directory USA would begin to emerge.
Automatic
voter-registration need not wait for
federal action.
State lawmakers who already agree with automatic registration
can begin to put more citizens on the voting-rolls in their states.
More funding might be provided to the Secretary of State
to begin to implement some of the suggestions above.
And—where
needed—state
laws can be changed
to move toward universal, automatic voter-registration.
12.
REPEAL AND/OR REPLACE ALL VOTER-SUPPRESSION LAWS.
In July 2016, an appeals court overturned
the
voter-suppression law of Texas,
which had been in effect for three years.
The court ruled that no matter what the purported reasons for the
law,
if it had the actual effect
of disenfranchising eligible
citizen-voters,
it was unconstitutional.
Other courts have also overturned other
voter-suppression laws.
Whenever a 'voter ID law' prevents a citizen of the USA from voting,
then it should be struck down
as a violation of the right to vote.
If citizens are removed from the voting-rolls
because they lack specific proofs of identity,
such laws should be thrown out.
All such voter-ID laws will probably be challenged
in
courts.
The advocates always say that they are trying to prevent voter-fraud.
But since these state laws are written by politicians,
they are sorely tempted to put their own party-loyality into the laws:
They select as valid forms of identification
only those documents very likely already to be possessed
by voters of their own party.
13.
NO MORE CITIZENS STRUCK FROM THE VOTING-ROLLS.
Whenever it becomes obvious that thousands of
eligible citizen-voters
are being struck from the voting-rolls,
then the true intent of these voter-suppression laws is manifest.
American citizens who are over 18 years of age,
who might have been voting for many years already,
suddenly find that they are required to present documents
that they have some difficulty obtaining.
When automatic voter-registration comes into full
effect,
then all voter-suppression laws will become obsolete:
No matter what local politicians might want to do,
if these citizens are listed in Directory USA,
there is no way that
they can be denied the right to vote.
Automatic voter-registration will establish the
opposite emphasis:
Instead of trying to remove
names from the voting-lists
and denying citizens
the right to register to vote,
all levels of government will seek to get more citizens to vote.
All voters who are already on voting-lists will
remain registered
—unless
and until someone can prove that they are not eligible because:
1. They are already registered in another location in the USA.
2. They are citizens of other countries.
3. They are felons who have not yet had their right-to-vote restored.
4. They are too young to vote.
5. They are not eligible to vote because of mental disability.
No person may be removed from a voting-list
without due process of law.
Here are some valid reasons for removing voters
from the rolls:
1. This voter is already registered to vote
at another location in the same state,
in a different state, or in another country.
2. This person is not a citizen of the United States.
3. This voter has been living in another country
and has not filed a U.S. income-tax return for the last year.
4. This former voter is now dead.
All living American citizens will be listed in
Directory USA.
And local voting officials will be required
to register these adults as voters where they live
unless they have (temporarily) lost their right-to-vote by criminal
behavior
or someone can show that these persons are not citizens of the USA,
etc.
A new federal law might be needed to prevent
voter-suppression:
Any person who prevents or attempts to prevent
any eligible citizen of the USA from voting in any election
or from registering to vote
should be sentenced to at least one week in federal prison.
If such a law had been in effect during the civil rights era,
it would have been a powerful tool to prevent voter-suppression.
As noted below, the local office of the FBI
could be assigned the task of investigating
any claims that citizens have been turned away at the polls
or at the places where they were attempting to register to vote.
And when any 'voter-ID' laws have been shown to have
the effect
of denying the right-to-vote to any citizen,
then such laws should be immediately overturned by the courts.
Unless they explicitly choose to be non-voting
citizens,
all adult American citizens
will automatically be registered to vote.
14.
A NEW VOTING RIGHTS ACT—LOOKING
FORWARD.
The original Voting Rights Act of 1965 (with later
revisions)
has lost most of its teeth because it was based on out-dated
information
about discrimination against certain classes of voters in the past.
Past discrimination does not prove present or future discrimination.
A new Voting Rights Act could guarantee the right to
vote
by making automatic voter
registration the law of the land.
It will take some years to achieve universal voter-registration,
but the new law could set targets to be achieved by the states.
With universal, automatic voter-registration,
no sub-group of potential voters can be excluded
simply because they do not have specific means of proving
identity.
The proof of identity will be
the voter-registration itself,
which should include a computer-picture of the voter.
No cards or papers need be taken to the polling place.
The voter just shows up and tells his or her name and address.
The voting-official looks up this voter on the computer:
If the face matches the person attempting to vote,
then a ballot will be issued.
Automatic voter-registration of all citizens
would overturn all state laws
requiring various forms of ID.
The citizenship of each voter would be established by
one nearly fool-proof system listing all citizens of the USA.
If there are any further problems with
voter-registration,
they can be resolved away from the polling place
and several days before the next election.
Individual voters should have the power to check on the Internet
to see if they are registered at the correct address.
Confusions of names and addresses could be resolved
by the National Identity Bureau.
The National Identity File for each individual
would show exactly where he or she is registered to vote.
This national data-base listing all registered voters
would prevent being registered to vote in more than one place.
And when voters die, they will be immediately removed from all rolls.
At present, there are more than a million dead people registered to
vote.
A new federal law for voting rights could require
all states to adopt automatic voter-registration.
The responsibility to get all
citizens onto the voting-rolls
would rest with the states.
This new federal law could sanction states that
have a poor record:
If 10% or more of the eligible citizens are not registered to vote,
that state would not be permitted to change any of its voting
regulations
(including changing voting districts)
without the approval of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Measuring voter-registration
success
would include citizens who choose to register as non-voters.
After a reasonable number of years,
each state will be required to show
that they have the names and addresses
of more than 90% of the eligible citizens in that state.
Independent investigations should also be encouraged,
especially in states that have a history of voter-suppression.
Requiring each state to register as many as possible
of its citizens
will shift the responsibility to state officials rather than citizens.
Each adult living in the USA is assumed to be an American citizen
—until
proven otherwise.
This means that no state may refuse to register someone to vote
simply because he or she does not have certain documents.
It is the state's burden to prove that this individuals is not a citizen.
This will shift the emphasis in some states
from trying to remove people
from the voting-rolls
to trying to get more
citizens to sign-up as voters.
When considering cases of questionable voters,
the burden of proof shall by
on the state officials
to prove that this person is not a U.S. citizen,
is too young, or otherwise not qualified to vote.
And all people previously listed as voters
shall remain on the voting-rolls
unless they are removed for good reasons.
Any voter removed because he or she has moved away
should be automatically registered to vote at the new location.
Just as the Social Security Administration and the Postal Service
keep track of forwarding addresses,
the voting registration officials of any state
should ensure that the voter is registered at the new address.
(Of course there will be exceptions.
For example, missing persons cannot be registered to vote anywhere.)
Also, whenever a previous voter is removed from the
voting-rolls,
there must be methods of
appealing that decision.
And even in this process of appeal,
the burden of proof rests with the state,
which is attempting to remove or reject a potential voter.
Each adult person living in the USA
is assumed to be a citizen eligible to vote
until the state has proven
otherwise.
As a check on state authority to deny
voter-registration,
the FBI shall be empowered to
investigate any complaints
from voters or would-be voters
that they have been turned away at the polls
or at the places for voter-registration.
Individual election officials found guilty of voter-suppression
should be tried in federal court.
If found guilty, they should serve time in federal prisons.
Each voting place or place of registration
might be required to post the phone
number
of the appropriate office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,
so that citizens attempting to vote will know how to claim their
rights,
even against the power of their state-officials
to refuse to register them or to allow them to vote.
Having the
FBI on call should go a long way toward
preventing any future attempts by elected officials
or appointed election-judges to suppress the right-to-vote.
Another provision of the
new Voting Rights Act
could overturn gerrymandering.
When state-lawmakers have created distorted districts for any reasons,
such lines must be re-drawn to allow every vote to count the same.
Outlaw
Gerrymandering:
Seven Ways to Abolish Distorted Districts
LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION
The Brennan Center for Justice
keeps track of all state and federal legislation in the USA
concerning automatic voter registration:
https://www.brennancenter.org/analysis/automatic-voter-registration
If you would like to check the current status of all
state ID laws, click:
http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/voter-id.aspx.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_ID_laws_in_the_United_States.
More than half of the states of the USA have voter ID laws.
About 20 countries have compulsory voting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compusory_voting
Canada has automatic voter-registration:
The National Register of Electors
lists more than 25 million Canadians
who are eligible to vote in national elections.
This is more than 90% of eligible voters:
http://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=reg/des&document=index&lang=e
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Register_of_Electors
The
United States of American might be able to do
better.
AUTHOR:
James Park is an independent thinker,
living and writing in
Minneapolis, Minnesota.
He votes in every election
and
wants his vote to be as meaningful as possible.
Much more will be
learned about him on his personal website:
James
Leonard Park—Free
Library
Here are three other on-line essays
suggesting changes in American
government:
Sex-Balanced
Senate
Replace
the
Electoral College
with One Presidential Vote for each Congressional District
Outlaw
Gerrymandering:
Seven Ways to Abolish Distorted Districts
These
and a few others have now been gathered into a small book
called:
Fixing
America.
Go
to other
on-line essays by James Park
organized
into 10 subject-areas.
Created
June 3, 2016; Revised 6-4-2016; 6-7-2016; 6-9-2016; 6-23-2016;
6-28-2016;
7-8-2016; 7-23-2016; 8-4-2016; 8-12-2016; 8-18-2016; 9-20-2016;
10-19-2016; 10-20-2016; 11-8-2017; 3-29-2018; 3-30-2019; 8-5-2020;
Go to
the beginning of this website
James
Leonard Park—Free
Library