The Perfect Storm: Motor Voter Act, Voter ID, and Deportation

This story begins with the plans that would allow people who are in the U.S. illegally or are legal but not citizens, to get driver’s licenses.

The most recent state, Connecticut, is still working on the wording of their bill. If enacted today, about 54,000 immigrants are old enough to apply. Advocates say it would ensure undocumented immigrants are given proper driving tests and allow them to get car insurance and provide additional state revenue from registration fees and car taxes.

The states that allow undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses: Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, and Washington.

The next chapter in our story is The Motor Voter Act.

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), popularly known as The Motor Voter Act, compliance did not become mandatory until 1995, is a legislation that required state governments to allow registration when a qualifying voter applied for or renewed their drivers license or applied for social services. This legislation forced state governments to make the voter registration process easier by providing uniform registration services through drivers' license registration centers, disability centers, schools, libraries, and mail-in registration.

The NVRA allows the Department of Justice to bring civil actions in federal court to enforce its requirements. These sections deal with voter registration:

• States should provide individuals with the opportunity to register to vote at the same time that they apply for a driver's license or seek to renew a driver's license, and requires the State to forward the completed application to the appropriate state of local election official. [Section 5]

• States should offer voter registration opportunities at all offices that provide public assistance and all offices that provide state-funded programs primarily engaged in providing services to persons with disabilities. Each applicant for any of these services, renewal of services, or address changes must be provided with a voter registration form of a declination form as well as assistance in completing the form and forwarding the completed application to the appropriate state or local election official. [Section 7 ]

• The Act also creates requirements as to how States should maintain voter registration lists for federal elections.[ Section 8]

The Act applies to 44 states and the District of Columbia. Those states which did not have voter registration requirements or had election-day registration at polling places were exempted from the purview of the Act.

Now comes along more voter ID laws that require people who do not drive go to their motor vehicle office to get a picture ID.

So here is the perfect storm.

Imagine having just arrived as a legal or undocumented immigrant to the United States. With foreign passport and visa in hand, or in some states no documents, you go to your local department of motor vehicles office to obtain a state ID or driver’s licence. To your surprise, a DMV official offers you the opportunity to become an organ donor and to register to vote.

As a result, you walk out of your local DMV, a proud new potential organ donor with state ID in hand. Within a few weeks you receive your voter-registration card in the mail, which you regard as official confirmation of your eligibility to vote. During the next election you happily go to your local polling place to vote, fulfilling what you see as your civic duty in your new homeland.

What you don't know is that your voter-registration card and your participation in a federal congressional election amount to an immigration kiss of death. You soon receive notice from the Department of Homeland Security of your impending deportation.

Sounds like an immigrant's worst nightmare. Unfortunately, thanks to the 1993 NVRA, it's a reality for many immigrants who arrive in the U.S. eager to start a new life.

Motor Voter effectively does away with document requirements and incorporates a convenient voter-registration solicitation as part of the process of issuing a driver's license or state ID. Unfortunately, these immigrants who mistakenly register to vote, then those that vote, risk deportation.

So we have created this perfect storm.

Let me know how you would fix this.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us