Election Day Voter Registration Debated
by Kimberly Primicerio | February 18, 2009 12:13 PM
Posted to State Capitol
Imagine registering to vote on Election Day.
The Government Administration and Elections Committee heard testimony Wednesday from several people who either support or oppose the Election Day Registration bill making its way through the legislative process.
The proposed bill would allow residents to go to the polls on Election Day and register as well as vote. People would no longer have to worry about making deadlines or registering a month prior to an election.
Jim Dean, whose brother Howard is the former Vermont governor and 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee, spoke in favor of the bill. Jim Dean is a Fairfield resident and chairman of Democracy for America. He said he travels all over the country helping people take responsibility for their political process.
Dean said the electoral process in Connecticut is a lot better than those in many other states, but it’s not perfect.
“People are mobile,” Dean said. “They have very little time for the registration process. Seven or eight states have registration on Election Day and it regulates diversity.”
Rep. David Labriola, R-Naugatuck, who has spent three terms on the Government Administration and Elections Committee, said he greets the bill with reservation. Labriola is concerned about “rampant” voter fraud.
“I fail to see the hardship to have someone register prior to Election Day,” Labriola said. Until he is certain the act dismisses any deception, he said he is opposed to it.
Dean said the biggest issue isn’t potential fraud, it’s in having adequately staffed polls. He said additional staff could eliminate fraud and make it easier for people to vote.
“Fraud happens,” Dean said. “If the staff is checking people in and technology is being used, this can all work very well.”
Between the 2000 and 2003 presidential primaries, Dean said he almost forgot to change his registration back to the Democratic Party so that he could vote for his brother. Dean explained that he had changed his party affiliation to Republican in 2000 so he could vote for U.S. Sen. John McCain in that presidential primary.
Dean, as someone who is involved in the electoral process, said that if he is missing a deadline, then others are as well.
“We need to make the system easier, not harder for people,” Dean said.
Saul Carlin, vice-president of Wesleyan University’s student body, supports the bill. However, he did propose one small change. He said instead of requiring everyone who wants to register and vote on the same day to go to one location, like the Town Hall in Middletown, he would like to see it implemented at every polling place.
For Wesleyan students, Town Hall is not easily accessible for pedestrians and those who don’t have access to transportation may not have one to two hours to take out of their schedule to vote, he said.
Several states in the U.S., including Iowa, Minnesota and Maine, offer some form of Election Day registration.
If the bill were to pass here, Carlin said the cost to the state would be minimal. He said Iowa spent less than $50,000 on the new act and most of the money was used to educate the state’s registrars-of-voters about the changes.
Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz supports the bill too.
Bysiewicz said that during the November election between 35,000 and 40,000 people cast provisional ballots. A provisional ballot gives a voter who was not registered to vote, or whose name is mistakenly omitted from the list of registered voters, the option to at least vote for a presidential candidate up until the time the polls close on Election Day.
She said the number of provisional ballots is proof that Connecticut can benefit from implementing an Election Day registration option.
If the state does adopt Election Day registration it will follow a process similar to that of presidential balloting, where voters are asked to vote in a central location within their voting district, she said.
Comments (9)
Posted by: City Hall Watch | February 18, 2009 2:04 PM
This is really getting old and very tired. To require the public to meet the most minimal deadline to exercise a sacred right of living in this country, the right to vote is not too much to ask. In today's world, nobody wants to hold people accountable who don't pay their mortgages; bankers who loan money they shouldn't; car companies who make cars and agree to union benefits they can't pay; or cities and the Legislature right here in CT who grossly expand services to the point they can't pay either.
Mr. Dean: You're just wrong. We are not too busy to register and there is no way to legitimately register and vote on the same day. Set up registration booths in the DMV, take other actions that will lead to higher voter involvment but let's at very least require people to use a modicum of common sense and responsibility. If they can't do that little bit, they're not smart enough or responsible enough to vote anyway.
Posted by: Ken Krayeske | February 18, 2009 4:05 PM
If someone decides on Election Day that they want to participate in government, that decision was months in the making, and we should applaud them for deciding to participate.
If that person then goes to the polls, and is turned away, they won't participate again. Rejection hurts on any level.
Let's open the process to as many people as possible. Our voting participation rate is shameful, and anything - anything - that increases it should be experimented with.
While I think Gerald Labriola is taking the classical Republican point and overstressing voter fraud, at least he uses his name to criticize the bill, unlike the anonymous City Hall Watcher.
If you want your opinion to be taken seriously, attach your name to it.
Posted by: TrueBlueCT | February 18, 2009 5:30 PM
This law would guarantee every eligilble voter the right to vote.
Every year, despite care be taken, thousands of CT residents are mistakenly deleted from the voting rolls, only finding this out when they show up and try to vote.
Then there are those folks who move, and simply forget to change their registration.
Add in folks who fill-out Motor Voter cards that never get turned in, or never get processed, and you end up with a sizable group of citizens who are being denied their right to vote.
At the very least, put the voter rolls online, such that voters can easily verifty their enrollment and party affiliation. (this information is already public.)
But why not EDR? The truth is here in CT we had EDR for the Presidential election, and it went off with out a blip That's right. You could register and vote on the same day, but in this case you were allowed only a Presidential ballot.
Here's hoping. And with veto-proof majorities, you'd think this would be a no-brainer for the Democrats.
Posted by: Doug | February 18, 2009 5:47 PM
Yes only allowing provisional participation for the presidential election isn't really appropriate or helpful. The country needs more participation at the state and municipal level, as well as in the congressional races, than it does in the presidential balloting.
Posted by: Jay![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/nav-commenters.gif)
| February 18, 2009 8:42 PM
I am sorry, those who think that people have time to go and register don't seem to understand some of the roadblocks out there. One has to take the time from work, foregoing pay, to go down to the town hall and stand in line. Now the line is not always there but the probability of it being there is present. At the same time there are other places once can register. For example, the DMV and the town library. But what one must remember is that these places are not always convenient or open at the same time the average person can get there. They are usually open during the same period that one is at work, 9-5. Even if they are open later, think about this how many of the working people out there have to make stops on their way home to pick up the kids at day care, to get some food, to car pool, etc. . . Newsflash::: IT IS NOT CONVENIENT FOLKS. The DMV recognizes this as they don't require us to go and register our vehicles in person any more.
Now I do not see a problem with today's technology to be able to register the same day as election day provided one has their driver's license or passport. We need to move past these obstacles that prevent people from participating. That is exactly what is at stake. We are preventing citizens from participating because of some antiquated law. A law that was good in its day, but has outlived its usefulness.
The reason many are concerned? Fraud? Now that can be easily taken care of. Let people register the same day and give them a provisional ballot. If there is a problem, then it can be checked very easily. Why do we insist that we need these antiquated laws???
Why is everyone so scared about this? The answer is clear. They are afraid the masses will actually vote! Now that could be a scary thing, my goodness democracy in action! Heaven save us.
Posted by: City Hall Watch | February 18, 2009 10:37 PM
Ken Krayeske and True Blue: It must really be exhausting to come up with all the excuses for failure to take 15 minutes to register. Yes, 15 minutes. I registered to vote, and then showed up again to change my registration. There were three people in the office, two doing nothing and one working. It took 15 minutes including parking and walking up to the office. The DMV, my friends is open on the weekends too. I'd be satisfied if somehow technology could be harnessed to make this easier too, provided it also carries a deadline so voter rolls can be verified and the polling places and voters who had their shix together, are not forced to accomodate people being dragged to the polls by vote pullers or machine politics. It's not about fraud. It's about preparation and being considerate of others waiting to vote.
Folks: This is not brain science. We all operate with deadlines on all kinds of things; paying property taxes, filing income taxes; registering our cars; getting a drivers license, going to work. Quit making excuses for sheer laziness.
And by the way, Ken Krayeske, posting your name adds no more legitimacy to your point of view than not. All it does for those of us who don't go along with group think, is to subject us to harassment,hatred and ignorant behavior that can and does affect our families. Using your criteria, that would also mean your opinion is the only one on this thread that should be considered legit. Yeah right.
Posted by: Doug | February 19, 2009 1:56 AM
Same-day registration should be part of a comprehensive poll reform package that everyone demanded after the 2000 election was stolen. Ditto for 2004. There was clear evidence of tampering and fraud and it was brushed under the political rug.
Reforming how our polls run in an effort to even the playing field will cost money but it would then legitimize our democracy. I keep hearing and reading folks on the far right complaining about Acorn, etc., and mainly this is just leftover partisanship. They're still smarting over their loss in November.
Acorn is not responsible for voter fraud. It's a registration organization designed to get more people involved in the process. Real people. If someone is dishonest and tries to register twice, it's not Acorn's fault that they tried to do that. What happened to personal responsibility? The person that attempts to register twice or more is at fault. Then they have to show up again to try to vote twice. Good luck with that.
And by the way... do I have to mention Ann Coulter?!
In the end, voter fraud is at least partially the gatekeeper's fault, and we've made it nearly impossible to keep an even playing field. We use a crazy piecemeal of voting systems that differ from state to state, county to county, town to town. It's a joke.
One person, one vote, one list of voters. Everything should be public and transparent. Everyone should vote on the exact same kind of machine, and every machine should be independently varified at every polling place, and audited, every year. No sampling. Full audits. No person should have access to any machine by themselves, and every bit of software should be audited by multiple parties before and after installation. This is how it's worked for years, technology be damned. People stood behind the machines and called out the numbers.
But whatever we do, we shouldn't complain about efforts to get more people involved. If convenience is a factor, make it more convenient. Don't complain about it. Don't make it partisan.
Posted by: Ken Krayeske | February 19, 2009 5:08 PM
City Hall Watch -
"The harassment, hatred and ignorant behavior that can and does affect our families" that you discuss, that wouldn't be coming from the state police or the Hartford Police Department would it?
Despite whatever harassment, hatred and ignorant behavior you have endured for using your name, I, of all people, understand what you may have endured. To criticize the government with your name and be jailed for it is what I have experienced.
Criticizing the government anonymously means nothing, and I don't much care that Publius wrote the Federalist Papers. The hottest place in hell is reserved for those who remain neutral in times of crisis, and to not use your name is to offer an inflammatory opinion from a safely neutral point of attack.
So, yeah, I understand the consequences of using my name, and I still do it. Why? Because my name is all I have in this world. To hide my opinion behind an anonymous handle degrades me, my self-respect and my thoughts.
I have worked hard and experienced much to form my point of view. I am proud of it, and I have withstood the aftermath that came with using my name. I will face that and worse to stand here before you with the full faith and credit of who I am to explain why I think what I think.
Sincerely,
Kenneth James Krayeske
Posted by: Bradley Spahn | February 19, 2009 5:16 PM
I think many of the commenters here have missed one of the most important reasons to have same-day voter registration. Many people try to register to vote but something out of there control happens along the way that prevents them from voting.
For instance, Rep. Matt Lesser related a story about a paid canvasser walking off the job with 100 completed voter registrations from UConn students. Certainly these students could legitimately expect to be registered to vote but through events beyond there control, weren't. Similarly, voter registrars often clear the rolls of long-time inactive voters, but if one of these voters, who should be registered indefinitely, return to vote after a long time, they'd be unable to do so.
Same-day registration serves as an inoculation to all of these problems, providing a way for voters to have the chance to vote despite other people's mistakes.