New Jersey Working Families and the Democracy Act

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said this week, “I don’t want to expand early voting and increase the opportunities for fraud,”

While Christie has made it clear he would not support legislation to expand voting opportunities, his Democrat-controlled legislature is moving forward with it anyway. Democratic leaders plan to introduce and fast-track the “Democracy Act” this week which would make it the second state to adopt automatic voter registration and would expand early voting opportunities, among other changes.

“We’re not reinventing the wheel” said Analilia Mejia, the director of New Jersey Working Families, which spearheaded the initiative to have lawmakers introduce the legislation. “Most of these things have been moved and adopted in other states successfully… It’s just mind-bending that a governor of a state would be against every single one of his citizens having full ease and access to participate in the voting process.”

New Jersey currently ranks 39th in the country in both percentage of eligible voters who are registered and percentage of voters who actually case a ballot. The state does not allow in-person early voting, but requires citizens who want to cast an absentee ballot early to apply for one at an election official’s office. New Jersey also does not permit online voter registration, something that is allowed in 33 other states.

The package of legislation will also include a bill that would ban governors from calling costly special elections, like the Senate race Christie ordered in 2013 which cost the state roughly $24 million.

The Democracy Act would also solve another problem plaguing New Jersey elections, the need to accommodate non-English speakers. Currently materials only have to be printed in Spanish if 10 percent of the county or voting districts speaks it as their primary language, but the bill would require election materials to be made available to voters in multiple languages without other stipulations.

If Christie vetoes the bill, as he is expected to do, the New Jersey Working Families plans to bring the issue directly to the voters on the next ballot.

The package of sweeping election reforms cleared its first hurdle in the Assembly when the Appropriations Committee approved the bill 6-3 along party lines. The committee also voted to remove the same-day voter registration provision in the bill.

UPDATE
On June 29, the New Jersey legislature passed AB 4613, which provides for early voting, online voter registration, and automatic registration for everyone who obtains a state drivers license or ID.











NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote! Michael H. Drucker