The Independent View: Automatic Voter Registration: Finding America's Missing Voters

In Automatic Voter Registration: Finding America’s Missing Voters, Liz Kennedy, Demos Campaign Strategist and Counsel, Lew Daly, Demos Director of Policy and Research, and Brenda Wright, Demos Vice President of Policy and Legal Strategies, provide a road map for policymakers and show how automatic voter registration (AVR) can transform voter registration from a barrier to a gateway to engagement. They find that AVR could grant approximately 27 million people access to elections and help close registration gaps across age, income, and racial groups.

“Our current system of voter registration creates barriers to voting that exclude tens of millions of potential voters from the political process,” said Kennedy. “AVR is a common-sense reform and an essential step to ensuring all eligible people can have their voices heard. AVR can help create the free, fair, and accessible democracy we deserve by shifting voter registration from a barrier to a gateway to engagement for America’s millions of missing voters.”

Building on the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) and other voter registration reforms like Same-Day Registration, AVR improves the overall effectiveness of the voter registration system. State election officials receive information already on file with a variety of government agencies to identify persons who are eligible to vote and add them to the voter rolls, or update their voter information, upon confirming their eligibility and offering an opportunity to decline registration.

Some key findings include:

- 4.1 million Americans who tried to register to vote were prevented due to registration deadlines. Another 1.9 million could not add themselves to the voter rolls because they did not know where or how to register.

- Registration is key to turnout: overall, while the rate of voter turnout among all eligible citizens was 64 percent in 2008 and 62 percent in 2012, the rate of voter turnout for people registered to vote was 90 percent in 2008 and 87 percent in 2012.

- There is a significant racial and class disparity in voter registration. Higher-income Americans vote at nearly double the rate of the lowest-income Americans. 41 percent of eligible Latino citizens, 44 percent of eligible Asian American citizens, 46 percent of eligible young adults, 18-24 year olds, and 37 percent of eligible people with low incomes, under $30,000, aren’t registered to vote.

- Voter turnout gaps are much smaller for registered members of low-turnout groups compared to the groups as a whole. Turnout inequalities shrink dramatically for Latinos and Asian-Americans when they are registered to vote, particularly in presidential election years.

CLICK HERE to view and download the 54 page (PDF) report.