Bring voting into 21st century

American democracy works best when every eligible citizen can have his or her voice heard through an efficient, accurate, secure and complete election system. By breaking down the barriers to participation, modernizing our elections can help ensure that our democracy is truly representing the will of the people. Massachusetts has begun the process of election modernization by providing for online voter registration and early voting.

Now, it’s time for us to modernize our election system further by enacting automatic voter registration, a change that can increase voter participation by eliminating bureaucracy and paperwork. This new system could register up to 680,000 eligible citizens in the commonwealth.

The current registration system was built in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 21st century, at a time when anyone can go online and order a pair of jeans and have them delivered a few hours or days later, we have the technology to bypass the costly and timeconsuming process of filling out duplicative paper forms.

Automatic voter registration allows eligible voters to automatically register with information they already provide to state agencies like the Registry of Motor Vehicles or MassHealth. It makes the registration process more efficient for election administrators and voters alike by cutting down bureaucracy and replacing an outdated registration system.

Already, eight states and the District of Columbia have passed automatic voter registration and 32 other states are considering legislation in 2017.

Oregon was the first state to implement automatic voter registration, and its effort was widely considered a huge success. Some 230,000 eligible Oregonians were registered to vote in the first six months and 97,000 participated in the 2016 election, making a new record for voter participation in Oregon.

Automatic voter registration would also make our elections more secure by adding Massachusetts to the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, a database clearinghouse used by 21 states and the District of Columbia and designed to help manage and clean up voter registration files. It makes sure that voting rolls are as accurate as possible by comparing voting information from all 21 member states with death records, DMV records, Social Security information and federal change of address data.

We can also save taxpayer dollars. A recent study found that an electronic registration costs 30 times less than processing a paper form.

Automatic voter registration is exactly what Massachusetts needs to modernize our elections and to ensure that every eligible citizen has a voice in holding our government accountable.

It’s time to modernize our election system by enacting automatic voter registration, a change that can increase voter participation by eliminating bureaucracy and paperwork.