West Virginia, a state with a far from progressive reputation, now has something in common with the pioneering states of Oregon and California: automatic voter registration.
In late March, a bill was passed that automatically registers West Virginia citizens to vote when they make contact with the Department of Motor Vehicles, unless they choose to opt-out.
Oregon, the first state to enact the new ruling, saw a great increase in active voters after the legislation was made official. According to the Seattle Times, on average, 2,000 people register to vote in Oregon in a month’s time. However, after the new initiative took place, 4,300 people entered the voter rolls in the first six days of 2016.
This new law was proposed under the principle that “it is the government’s responsibility to register voters,” which according to the article, could grow the registered voter base by 13 percent by the election in November.
Although Republicans in both California and Oregon opposed the new bill, Bill Cole, West Virginia’s Republican Senate president, happily welcomed the new change.
“If managed properly, automatic registration is a great benefit to our citizens and will encourage more people to go to the polls,” he said.
Opponents of the new legislation claim that automatic voter registration only adds people disinterested in politics and U.S. issues to the voter rolls and would not advance overall turnout during election season. However, supporters of the bill argue that the right to vote should be guaranteed and should not require paperwork.
“There’s no other fundamental right we have as citizens that requires you to register or fill out a form,” said Alex Padilla, California’s Democratic secretary of state. “I don’t have to register somewhere to exercise my freedom of speech. I don’t have to fill out a form somewhere to exercise my right to not be discriminated against.”
As someone who is sometimes too busy to even wash her hair or make dinner, I think this new law is a great idea because it takes away people’s excuse of not being registered to vote. Once the paperwork is taken away, people feel more capable of voting because it’s one less thing on their to-do list. Voting should not be a chore; people should be able to look forward to making positive changes for the nation and their respective communities.
Featured image via Flickr by Erik (HASH) Hersman under a Creative Commons 2.0 license.
