Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 3, 1995 TAG: 9509050075
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-11 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times|
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES LENGTH: Long
Several states report that the act - popularly known as the ``Motor Voter Law'' because it permits people to register while obtaining a driving permit - has generated threefold increases, and greater, in the pace of registrations compared with earlier years.
``There's never been a massive registration like this in such a brief period in all of the country's political history,'' said Lloyd Leonard, an elections specialist for the League of Women Voters.
``When women and 18-year-olds got the vote, they started off registering much more slowly. But back then, for the most part, they couldn't register when getting a driving permit, which is the key provision of `Motor Voter.' Just about everybody drives.''
Estimates are that, by the turn of the century, if the surge generated by the new law continues, at least four of every five adult Americans will be registered to vote, compared with about three of every five now.
Whether increased registration will improve voter turnout on election days is but a guess at this point. In recent years, turnout has hovered around 50 percent of the eligible adult population.
As for the ideological background of the new voters, only about half the states register by party and none of those that do has yet produced a breakdown. However, early indications are that while Democrats and Republicans have benefited from the new law, the biggest surge in registrations appears to have been toward the independent column. That would tend to confirm recent election turnouts, which have also shown a rise in independent voting.
When the proposal was making its way through Congress, some opponents, mainly Republicans, feared that it would result in Democratic gains because it would encourage registration of the poor and disadvantaged, who have tended to vote for Democrats for the last 50 years.
``There's no real evidence of that so far,'' Leonard said. ``The most striking thing we're getting is just the raw number increases overall, regardless of party.''
Georgia registered 303,000 new voters between January and June of this year, compared with only 85,000 registrations for all of 1994. In Iowa, there were 22,500 registrations in the first quarter of this year, compared with 8,700 registrations for all of 1994.
In Alabama, almost 43,000 people registered during the first quarter of 1995, compared with only 23,000 registrations for that same period in 1994. Kentucky had 77,000 registrations in the first quarter of 1995 but only 23,000 new enrollees in all of 1994.
Indiana had 64,000 registrations in the first quarter of this year, compared with 5,400 during that period in 1994, while in the District of Columbia during the first six months of 1995 almost 12,000 voters were registered, compared with 2,000 for the same period in 1994.
Most new voters signed up while obtaining or renewing driving permits. But large numbers also took advantage of provisions mandating that welfare agencies and other government offices also offer registration.
Before the new law was passed, voter registration in many states typically took place at scattered registrar offices, sometimes at odd hours. Only a few states permitted registration at various government offices, and a handful even permitted enrollment by mail.
Year in and year out, less than 63 percent of the voting-age population was registered to vote, with the young and the poor notably lagging, particularly in parts of the South.
At the start of 1995, elections experts calculated, there were about 190 million citizens of voting age but only about 120 million were registered. Now, the experts say, in just the past six months the registration figure has jumped to about 125 million, or almost 66 percent of all eligible citizens.
Officials of the National Motor Voter Coalition, a group of civic organizations that helped push the law through Congress, predict that by the turn of the century at least 40 million new registrations will take place under the law.
``We think that by the mid-term elections in 1998, at least 80 percent of all the voting age population will be registered, maybe even 85 percent,'' said Richard Cloward, executive director of Human Serve, one of the groups in the coalition. ``Some of the big states ... have resisted or have been slow starting, especially in setting up registration facilities in government agencies other than driving permit offices. But, in any event, the potential for even bigger numbers is certainly there.''
As the law made its way through Congress, opponents argued that it would result in a surge in fraudulent enrollments. They also contended that it would be expensive to implement. So far, no evidence exists that the voting act has increased voting fraud, federal officials say. But no one knows for sure.
Some state voting officials continue to urge Congress to strengthen the law, especially procedures for assuring that voter identifications are correct. And a few states, among them Virginia, California, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, have challenged the constitutionality of the law, thus far unsuccessfully, or have been taken to court by the Justice Department and forced to begin implementing it.
After a federal appeals court ordered California to implement the voting act, Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican, declared that the law was ``a blatant assault on the principle of federalism and the powers of states to control their own resources.''
California's secretary of state, Bill Jones, said that the law was so sloppily written that it was threatening the state's anti-fraud registration procedures ``in the good intentions of voter outreach.''
``We must have amendments if we are to help ensure the integrity of our elections system,'' he told a congressional hearing.
By contrast, Georgia's secretary of state, Max Cleland, has only praise for the new law.
``People are amazed and pleased that the government is taking steps to make life easier for them,'' he said.
Whether the voting act has encouraged fraud, what is certain is that the expanded rolls include duplications. Some new voters are actually re-registrations by people who have moved from one address to another and have failed to send back word of their switch to registrars in their old neighborhoods.
However, if states implement the new law as Congress intended when it was passed two years ago, registrars will purge their rolls at least once every four years by mailing a series of queries to every registrant.
``It's hard to think of another law that has yielded so much for so little,'' Attorney General Janet Reno said recently after seeing the initial registration figures. ``The law truly has strengthened our democratic process. It is one-stop shopping, government made easy.''
John Jackson, an 18-year-old Los Angeles resident, was pleased to discover the ``one-stop shopping'' aspect of the law when he showed up the other day at a Division of Motor Vehicles office to obtain a driving permit.
``They make it really convienient,'' he said. ``The registration form is attached to the back of the license application. Getting the form here instead of having to search somewhere else to register definitely made me get it done quicker.''
But will the voting act, for all the convenience it offers, do anything to increase the percentage of Americans going to the polls?
In recent years, the turnout of the voting-age population has barely exceeded 50 percent in presidential elections and has hovered around 35 percent in nonpresidential elections.
``I'm impressed by the registration surge thus far, but I'm not ready to predict that there will be a significant increase in the percent of people actually voting,'' said Curtis Gans, the director of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, a Washington-based organization.
``The act can't hurt,'' he said. ``It surely reaches out to young people, and it surely opens up opportunity to register in some states where opportunity has been lacking somewhat, as in parts of the South. But that's no guarantee that people will actually vote in greater numbers.''
by CNB