America's National Embarrassment

Why is the rest of the world so much better at signing up the vote?

BY WENDY WEISER, MARGARET CHEN | JULY 29, 2009

One of the biggest takeaways from last year's U.S. presidential election had little to do with campaigning: Winning votes, it seems, requires signing them up first. Last November's election saw turnout rise among Hispanic, Black, and young voters, new census data shows -- gains made possible by huge increases in registration rates. And those newbie voters played a key role in the outcome. 

What's more surprising, however, is that nearly 30 percent of all eligible Americans still aren't registered. Nine million U.S. citizens couldn't get on the voting rolls because of registration deadlines, and another two to three million couldn't cast ballots that counted toward the outcome because of registration problems, according to a recent Harvard-MIT study. And our recent research for the Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy and law institute at New York University School of Law, offers a clue as to why: an outdated voter registration system. Compared with other democracies, the United States' system for signing up to vote is a national embarrassment.

Just compare the U.S. registration rate to that of other democracies: In Argentina, 100 percent of eligible voters are registered. Britain boasts a 97 percent registration rate. Canada registers more than 93 percent of eligible citizens, and other major democracies -- Australia, France, Germany, and Indonesia -- manage to sign up more than 90 percent of all potential voters.

What is America doing wrong?

The first clue is who is in charge of ensuring that voters get on the list. The United States is one of the few democracies that place the entire burden of voter registration on individual citizens. In our recent study, we found that the opposite was true in nearly all of the democracies in our 16-country survey. Britain, for example, conducts an "annual canvass" to add new voters to the rolls and update existing records. Local election officials mail canvass forms to each household and go door-to-door to collect them.

Technology has much to do with the U.S. backwardness as well. In Argentina, for example, local election officials add eligible voters to the rolls from a national list of all citizens maintained by a federal agency. Voters don't need to register because they are already permanently included on a constantly updated civil registry.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

 

Wendy Weiser is director of the voting rights and election project at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.

Margaret Chen is research associate at the center and contributor to Expanding Democracy: Voter Registration Around the World, by Jennifer Rosenberg.

CHICHARRONE IN COCHA

8:20 PM ET

July 31, 2009

skirting the issue?

republicans prefer to keep the voter rolls as they are since most voters (and most new voters) are democrats. hence all the hoopla last year over voter fraud (an almost non-existent problem), voter ID cards in georgia, etc.

 

ROYGSALTMAN

9:43 AM ET

August 1, 2009

Voter Registration Article by Weiser and Chen

The authors are hardly the first ones to propose changes to the US voter registration system. What is needed now is a well-thought-out practical proposal to be submitted to the appropriate committees of the US House and Senate. This proposal should probably suggest that the Election Assistance Commission be given the duties and funding to carry out this mission to establish a national voter registration database. Each registered individual should be given a national identifier which would remain the same regardless of state of residence. To implement this idea, data would need to be collected from birth and death records, nationalization records, USPS change-of-address records, as well as from state records such as driver's licenses. Such a system, when established, could end the paranoia that now exists about voting by non-citizens. This proposal could be worked out by a group of knowledgeable individuals funded by a sympathetic foundation.