Time to close the democracy gap

Election Day is less than three weeks away. Are you registered to vote? If not, you may still have a chance. Or you may be out of luck. At this point, it all depends on where you live. In New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Kentucky, the registration deadline has passed. Alabamians and South Dakotans have until next today. Other states, like Minnesota and Idaho, are more generous, allowing citizens to register right up until the election and, increasingly, letting them vote on the same day.

This patchwork is a result of America’s highly decentralized electoral process, which is a good design in many ways, but which leads to a wide variety of voting laws and policies from state to state. Call it the democracy gap.

In the places on the wrong side of that gap, it’s confusing and discouraging to potential voters, especially those most likely to have difficulty getting registered and to the polls in the first place. It’s unnecessary, because states have already shown that it’s not difficult to register voters up until — and on — Election Day. And it’s the opposite of what the world’s oldest and richest democracy should be doing, which is simple: Make voting as easy and accessible as possible.

Registration is a key to that effort, because once people register, they are very likely to vote. In 2016, 87 percent of registered voters surveyed said they cast their ballot, as compared with 61 percent of all eligible voters. And while federal laws like the National Voter Registration Act have made registration and voting somewhat easier, they don’t go far enough.

Why can’t every state get with the program? Partly it’s bureaucratic inertia. Partly it’s incumbents protecting “their” electorate. And partly, it’s that our elections are run by partisan political officials — a terrible idea, as most other modern democracies have figured out. In those countries, election administration is the job of independent commissions or other bodies that are insulated from partisan politics. Here in America, it’s the job of people like Brian Kemp.

Kemp is Georgia’s secretary of state, a post he’s held since 2010. He’s also the state’s Republican candidate for governor, which means he has spent the past eight years setting the electoral rules and practices for the same people who will decide his fate in November.

During that time, Kemp has pursued multiple investigations into minority voter-registration drives, alleging voter fraud even though he’s found virtually none. He purged 1.5 million voters from Georgia’s rolls from 2012 to 2016, more than double the number than in the previous two election cycles. And recently, the Associated Press reported that Kemp suspended the registrations of 53,000 voters, 70 percent of whom are black, for failing the state’s unusually strict “exact match” policy, which requires a voter’s name on his or her registration to be identical to that on other state records. If it isn’t — either because of a minor typo or a clerical error — the registration is suspended until the voter resolves the discrepancy.

The Justice Department blocked the first version of the exact-match policy, in 2009, for discriminating against black, Asian and Latino voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Four years later, the Supreme Court gutted the heart of the act and paved the way for the policy and other discriminatory measures like it.

In the absence of meaningful federal oversight of voting laws, states can take the lead. Many have already taken steps to modernize and streamline their voter-registration systems. It’s not hard, as long as your goal is ensuring that as many people as possible can participate in the political process.

The gold standard is automatic voter registration, which has become law or policy in 13 states since 2015, with more likely to adopt it soon. In states with automatic registration, which cross the political spectrum, an interaction with a government agency, like the Department of Motor Vehicles, automatically registers an eligible citizen to vote, unless he or she affirmatively opts out. This increases voter turnout, saves money and increases the accuracy of voter rolls.

In Oregon, the first state to adopt automatic registration, the rate of new registrations quadrupled in the first year, to 272,000; by one estimate, more than 116,000 of those Oregonians were unlikely to have registered otherwise. Nationwide, automatic registration could add as many as 22 million voters to the rolls in a year, which would translate into roughly 8 million more people casting a ballot, according to a study by the Center for American Progress.

Another common-sense innovation is same-day registration — letting voters register and vote during a single trip to the polls, whether on Election Day or in an early-voting period, as 17 states and the District of Columbia now offer. This lifts the pressure of early registration deadlines and is especially relied on by groups who move frequently or struggle to make multiple visits to election offices — like minorities, young voters and working parents.

There’s also online registration, which is cheaper, more accurate, more convenient and more intuitive to a generation of Americans who have grown up in front of computer screens. Speaking of the younger generation, 4 million Americans turn 18 every year, and getting them preregistered when they’re 16 or 17 increases the likelihood that they’ll vote.

Of course, registration doesn’t mean much if people don’t get out and vote. And lack of time or opportunity to get to the polls is one of the biggest hurdles to voting for people who are registered. The good news is that more and more states are coming to realize that there’s nothing sacred about voting on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia offer a period of early voting, and more than one-third of all voters now vote on a day other than Election Day.

Beyond its convenience to voters, early voting makes for shorter lines, which eases pressure on poll workers and reduces chances for error. The same goes for voting by mail, as Oregon, Washington and Colorado now require for all voters, and no-excuse absentee ballots.

All of these advances are intuitive and easy to carry out. And yet 1 in 4 eligible Americans — roughly 50 million people — remain unregistered. Some of these people are uninterested in politics or disillusioned with the candidates or the process. But many others would most likely register — and vote — if doing so were easier.

Voting in a democracy shouldn’t be a test of your mettle or perseverance. It shouldn’t depend on how much time you can take off from work, away from child care or other obligations. And in 2018, there’s no reason it can’t be made as easy as possible for everyone.