Texas voter registration is not the easiest of processes, but it's not impossible. It still involves a form that has to be printed on paper and snail-mailed - a slow, time-consuming process for our modern world. Often, even after registering, information comes out inaccurate and voters are stopped at the polls and turned away due to a change in address, misspelled name, or wrong birth date. This wastes valuable time at the polls, making voting full of frustratingly long lines. However, what prioritizes this issue is the greater consequence of lost votes and lost voices.
At first glance, the solution seems to be automatic registration. Two states, Oregon and now California, use automatic registration in which citizens are registered to vote as soon as they turn 18. Information the state already has is compiled and any citizen over 18 can simply show up to vote. However, the concern often arises as to the individuals that, while eligible, don't want to be registered to vote for religious or personal reasons. Some argue that automatic registration oversteps the role of government. Such issues cause automatic registration to be a hard vote.
Upon further examination, the answer lies in an already established Texas registration method. In Texas, citizens over 18 are encouraged to register to vote when obtaining a driver's licence or changing address at the DMV where applications are also provided. A simple signature and maybe a piece of missing information is filled in, and with practically no extra time, the citizen is registered to vote with accurate information. Heather K. Gerken takes the next step into solution, "Now imagine every public organization - a state university, the Department of Veterans Affairs, your local Social Security office - providing the same kind of one-stop shopping... It wouldn't be difficult for them to forward that information to election officials."
There are three advantages besides increased registration: choice, encouragement, and accuracy. Gerken's solution allows a citizen to choose not to be registered while still making it more convenient. The added freedom would make the bill much easier to pass in the very freedom-conscious Texas. Because a citizen is reminded to register at more state institutions, she is simultaneously encouraged to vote. Especially for the thousands of students at state universities, this much needed encouragement and ease of access could potentially increase the dismal millennial turnout. This solution also provides better accuracy. Anytime address is changed or name corrected, voters can quickly make this information match their election registration, preventing long lines and discouraged voters at the polls.
Despite all these stellar advantages, voter registration may not increase significantly. Americans are an apathetic people and more drastic measures would need to be taken to significantly change the numbers. However, with an often gridlocked government, small steps are the taken steps and anything is worth a shot.
Providing more opportunities for accurate registration will encourage voter registration and turnout while appealing to Texas's ideal of freedom.
Voting turnout in Texas is definitely an issue. The fact that, as you mentioned "There are more people unregistered than people who actually vote." gives reason for concern. I like the very feasible solution to the problem. That is, making registration easier by providing more locations to register in a simpler manner.
ReplyDeleteThe solution offered by the author of this post combined with Heather K. Gerken's idea of a "one-stop shop" for voter registration is one of the more ideal and straightforward answers towards the registration issue, which of course is just an opinion, but also a decision based around the reasoning behind the many solutions offered. This seems to be the solution, among others, that offers a simple but clever way to implement voter registration into other forms of registration for the state of Texas.
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