HOUSE PUTS MOTOR-VOTER ON THE ROAD

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 5, 1993                   TAG: 9302050188
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
HOUSE PUTS MOTOR-VOTER ON THE ROAD
The House, in another step toward enactment of a long-stifled Democratic agenda, passed legislation Thursday that would allow voters to register by mail or when they apply for driver's licenses.
Brushing aside Republican objections that the legislation would open the door to widespread electoral fraud, the House approved the so-called motor-voter bill 259-160 on virtually a straight party-line vote.
The bill, which is expected to win easy passage in the Senate later this month and be signed by President Clinton, was almost identical to legislation vetoed by former President Bush last year. Proponents hope it will increase voter participation in elections by streamlining the registration process. Higher voter registration generally helps Democrats at election time.
"There are over 57 million American citizens eligible to vote who are not registered because of archaic procedures . . . that inhibit people from registering to vote," Rep. Esteban Torres, D-Calif., said. "This bill will encourage participation in the electoral process."
Republican opponents, however, countered that the bill could encourage participation in the electoral process by illegal aliens not entitled to vote.
"I'm convinced it was named motor-voter after Zoe Baird's chauffeur," quipped Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, referring to Clinton's first appointee for attorney general who was forced to withdraw her nomination because she had hired illegal aliens to serve as a baby sitter and driver.
"We don't want to return to the `good ol' days' when relatives long since dead rose from the grave and participated in our electoral process . . . . But if passed this legislation could lead to the most massive voting fraud in our nation's history," Minority Leader Robert Michel, R-Ill., said shortly before the bill was passed.
The motor-voter legislation was one of several bills vetoed by Bush that the Democratic leadership in Congress revived and put on the fast track this year to demonstrate that a decade of legislative gridlock has ended now that the Democrats control the White House.
The bill would require states not already doing so to offer voter registration by mail and in person at motor vehicle bureaus, unemployment agencies and other offices providing social services. It also would prohibit states from removing a person's name from a voter registration list for failing to vote.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB