Hearing: Voter Registration: Assessing Current Problems
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Executive Summary
The most recent 2008 presidential election was one of our most closely followed. The entire country was excited and engaged. Many local election officials were overwhelmed by the spikes in the number of submitted voter registration forms and countless scores of voters endured long lines throughout the primary and general election season. Yet, the final data indicates that only 61 percent of all Americans eligible to vote cast ballots in the November 2008 election --1% more than in the 2004 election. LDF believes that many more people would have liked to have voted in this historic election. And, we should undertake to see that in future elections they will have that opportunity.
During the 2008 presidential election cycle and the preceding period, we have witnessed a range of problems which illustrate that our voter registration system is broken and in need of repair. Among the problems observed include the development and implementation of purge programs that resulted in the removal of substantial numbers of voters from registration rolls; widely disparate practices among local election officials concerning the processing of voter registration applications; varied approaches towards the implementation of the Help America Vote Act's (HAVA) database matching requirements; confusion regarding the impact of felon disenfranchisement laws on voter eligibility; efforts to chill voter registration drives and outreach programs; and noncompliance with the mandates of the National Voter Registration Act at departments of motor vehicles and other designated state agencies. Together, these problems frustrate efforts to achieve full and equal participation in our political process. Indeed, new or reemergent barriers to voter registration move the nation in the wrong direction.
Given these problems, the challenge we now face is determining how to reform and repair the system in a way that will be more inclusive and provide affirmative opportunities for broad and meaningful participation to the millions of eligible but not yet registered citizens throughout our country. While we turn our attention to exploring the corrective action that must be taken, we must remain mindful of the particular challenges faced by those who are among the most vulnerable and marginalized in our society -the poor, those incarcerated, and our nation's racial and ethnic minorities. Indeed, the future of American democracy remains tied to our ability to address the persisting barriers that exclude millions of citizens from being able to register and vote on Election Day.