This sounds good:
A newly released review of a June 27 report by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) shows that voter registration application rates at state public assistance agencies have risen sharply following National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) enforcement actions by advocacy groups Demos, Project Vote, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and others. In contrast, the overwhelming majority of states not targeted have continued to see a long decline in registration of lower-income residents.
“The new data underscore the effectiveness of enforcement in giving low income Americans a voice in the democratic process,” said Lisa Danetz, Senior Counsel at Demos and co-lead counsel in a settled lawsuit against Ohio. “For example, Ohio topped the EAC list for voter registration at public assistance offices. As a result of our lawsuit, the state institutionalized procedures to offer voter registration. Those procedures will ensure that voter registration does not fall off the radar screen.”Ohio and Missouri topped the rankings in reported voter registration applications submitted at public assistance offices. Both states have settled lawsuits regarding lack of National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) compliance, brought by Demos, Project Vote, the Lawyers’ Committee, and others.
They’re suing to enforce the National Voter Registration Act (known as “motor voter”).
I read quite a bit on election law, and “motor voter” is usually portrayed as an idea that enjoyed “broad bipartisan support”. The implication is that Republicans and Democrats linked arms across the aisle and happily rubber-stamped the bill.
Here’s how The League of Women Voters remembers it:
The League’s grassroots campaign to secure national legislation to reform voter registration resulted in 1990 passage by the House of Representatives of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), or “motor voter.” Despite strong League lobbying, the Senate refused to bring the bill to the floor in fall 1990.
The effort to pass national motor-voter legislation intensified in the 102nd Congress. In February 1991, the National Voter Registration Act of 1991 was introduced in the Senate. Leading a national coalition, the League carried out a high visibility, multifaceted, grassroots drive, resulting in passage of the Senate bill by both the House and Senate in 1992. Despite League pressure, the President vetoed the bill. An attempt to override the veto in the Senate fell five votes short of the necessary two-thirds majority.
Finally, in 1993, the many years of concerted effort by the League and other voting rights organizations paid off, when both houses of Congress passed voter registration reform legislation. President Clinton signed the National Voter Registration Act in May. The “motor-voter” bill enabled citizens to apply to register at motor vehicle agencies automatically, as well as by mail and at public and private agencies that service the public.
So, like nearly everything else, it was big battle and it took too long.
Here is a report on a study of voting across income levels. I don’t know if it is reliable. If it’s accurate, most of us probably aren’t adequately or equitably represented:
Furthermore, there are enormous disparities that exist in America across income levels in all forms of participation, particularly voting. A study on these disparities found that 86% of people with incomes above $75,000 claim to have voted in presidential elections as compared with only 52% of people with incomes under $15,000. As a result of the participation disparity across demographic lines, politicians are more responsive to the opinions of high-income constituents.
A study of roll call votes under the 107th and 108th Congresses reported that legislators were three times more responsive to high-income constituents than middle-income constituents and were the least responsive to the needs of low-income constituents.
Baud
Not that I disagree, but the link had no information on how they measured “responsiveness.”
jwb
Thanks for posting this. I really appreciate your reporting and all your hard work.
kay
@Baud:
Yeah. It’s a little sketchy. I do know the conventional wisdom is that people with less education vote in lower numbers than people with more education, so if that goes along with income…
There seems to be some… reluctance to ask about income. I don’t know why they can’t just ask people, if they’re asking about education and every other thing in the world.
Baud
@kay: I also just realized that the 107th-108th Congress were W.’s first term. I’d imagine they would be very unresponsive to lower income voters.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Bu-but,
African-Americans and other undesirables votingVoter Fraud!kay
@Baud:
Would you? Imagine that?
Because it’s a fantasy, right :)
It drives me crazy, because if we’ve decided money is political speech, and we have, and if we’ve decided that more money is more and louder political speech, and we have, the only remedy or pushback to that is actual, free political expression, like voting. Easy! But it’s like pulling teeth.
JGabriel
Kay @ Top:
… And we’re still fighting to implement and maintain it.
.
lol
If poor people can’t be bothered to go to their local county elections office in person and submit an application using the correct paper weight and ink color, then really, are they actually interested in voting? And then really, should such uninterested people be allowed to vote at all?
Baud
@kay: We’re having another Obot/Firebagger
wardebate in the previous thread, and I hate to bring it in here, but that is one of the main problems I have with the “cynical” crowed – it drives away people who we need not to be driven away.One thing I’ve never quite understood is the way some people approach voting like marriage, constantly waiting for Mr. or Ms. Right. I have no problem voting against the candidate that least represents my views if there is no one on the ballot I’m excited about. If voters just did that, we’d over time make a lot of progress in this country.
jwb
@lol: You forgot to add the knowledge test and proof that they own land.
ETA: Otherwise good snark.
Marginalized for stating documented facts
Poor people and young people (under 25) tend not to vote. If this were to change, America would be transformed overnight.
Despite all the wild talk on this forum about third parties and Biden casting a tie-breaking vote at reconciliation bills, the real key to transformation in American politics involves getting poor people and young people to vote.
These two demographics are overwhelmingly progressive. It’s crucial that ordinary run-of-the-mill Democrats volunteer to go door to door and persuade poor people and young people to vote. The change this would effect in our elections is truly hard to overstate.
superking
Republicans hate the Nora because it requires states to make voter registration materials available at state agencies that provide services to the public. That includes welfare agencies and unemployment offices where–horror of horrors–some poor people might register to vote.
russell
Yeah, that (the participation), and also *the freaking money*.
I voted for Obama, I gave money for Obama, I made phone calls for Obama. And as far as “progressive” political positions goes, IMO Obama is mediocre.
Obama is not an accurate reflection of my personal political, social, and economic priorities.
But he’s a very good President. He was the best available Democratic candidate in ’08, by which I mean, he was able to actually win. And the nation is a million times better off than it would have been had McCain won.
Seriously, can you imagine what a world of pain we would be in now with President McCain and Vice President Palin?
Obama more than meets my expectations, not least because I didn’t expect him to be like me, only President.
He’s not like me. He’s like Obama. I can live with that.
Baud
@russell: Nicely put. :)
Chris
@Marginalized for stating documented facts:
This. The average American is far, far more liberal than the average voter.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@jwb: I don’t know about you two, but I’d feel MUCH better if the person seeking permission to vote had to MAKE the paper him or herself. That would show they had the inventiveness and determination of a ReaLAMErican.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@kay: Of course it’s like pulling teeth – the paid political speech doesn’t want it. But you knew that. Thanks for covering this stuff, kay.
CalD
Now if we could only find a way to produce voters that actually bother to inform themselves before going to the poles. A couple of years ago a woman who told me, “Gee, I really have no idea who the candidates are or what, they’re for or what I should be for, but I feel like I should vote.” I was like, please don’t. Seriously. Just don’t.
Spaghetti Lee
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
On an unrelated side note, Koch Industries just purchased a major stock in America’s paper mills!
lllphd
impossible to determine from the data quoted here, but do those percentages of voters really add up to the pathetic national average voting rate of 63% in 08? which was quite high, historically.
Pococurante
@15 Chris
Seriously, on what do you base this. My experience is that the more ill-informed politically the person, the more reactionary their world view.
Folks disinclined to vote tend to be ill-informed politically.
kay
@Pococurante:
I agree. It’s anecdotal, but I don’t think poor people are inherently “progressive”.
I don’t think it matters, though. I would think the goal would be more responsive representation based on broader participation, which is not necessarily going to track my preferred ideology.
For me, the idea is representation that has something to do with actual majorities, and reality. I’ll take that. I think that all by itself would be huge.
liberal
kay wrote,
I’ll wager that poor people tend to be relatively progressive, but not as progressive as some people might hope.
kay
@liberal:
I’m way out of my league, and playing psychologist, but I think that if you are financially vulnerable you seek security, and one measure of security is “things staying the same”. Now, Republicans are radicals, so they wouldn’t be the people to vote for if you’re seeking security, but that doesn’t make someone seeking security a “progressive”. It just means they feel slightly safer if things stay the same, and progressives are now, currently, trying to protect the social safety net, and the status quo.
HyperIon
Thanks, Kay, for the usual excellent post.
Oh, and I’ve been meaning to mention this for a while….
Whenever I see that you’ve posted I say “It’s Kay” in that Tracey Ullman voice she used for her Kay character. She was pretty funny back in the day.
Crow
A friend of mine linked me to this article since we were discussing voting mechanics of this very nature last week. So thanks for writing an excellent post about it. :)
It stemmed from suggesting that Election Day should be a national holiday, and whether or not that would help make it easier for the young and the lower classes to make it to the polls. One other possible options might be having the polls open over multiple days, such as the first weekend in November and the following Monday, so that people couldn’t say “I had to work a double on Tuesday and couldn’t make it.”
Ultimately, though, the problem of the young and poor not voting isn’t necessarily the accessibility of the polls as much as it is access to understanding what the candidates stand for and what they’re promising. I’d argue that the disillusionment or ignorance of the young and the lower classes is based more on an inherited idea that the Government Doesn’t Do Anything; this recent argument over the debt ceiling, if they even know about it, seems flippant and pointless when the young and the poor are the demographics most present in our Armed Forces. The college student wants to know when the Government will get us out of war so he can have his deployed friends back. The poor blue-collar worker wants to know why he had to lose a son or daughter when we already killed Osama bin Laden.
I don’t know how much we can argue that the poor don’t care about government, when the truth might be that the poor don’t believe the government cares about them. The data you referenced shows that our representatives admit that their high-dollar constituents (and likely campaign contributors) bear more weight than the poor, so this isn’t an unfounded idea.
I guess this brings us to the big question: how do we get the poor and the disenfranchised youth to care about the governance of their nation? And the other side to that being: how do we get their representatives to care about the poor and the young?