How America Votes

Here is a very nice piece by VOA's Jeffrey Young on how the United States registers voters. It's bound to become an election issue, in fact, it already has, as parties are trying to quickly register those Americans they think will vote for them in the 2008 election.

Here is Jeff's report:

Voter registration is the beginning of the electoral process. Political parties consider voter registration to be a cornerstone of their power and influence, because registration identifies people likely to support that party and vote accordingly on election day. People who register can indicate which party they want to be aligned with, or they can also register as unaffiliated with any party.

Voter registration rolls swell in times of heightened political interest. The 2008 election cycle is one of them. The emergence of a very spirited contest between Democratic presidential aspirants Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama has driven both campaigns to conduct massive voter registration drives in hopes of filling the primary elections with their supporters. Along with those two candidates, the Democratic Party also benefits from a swell in registrations because it may well translate into a higher Democrat turnout in the November general election.

Registration is tied to residence. When someone moves, they have to re-register in their new location. Since states also require people who move to get a new driver's license, a federal law popularly called the "motor voter" law went into effect in January 1995 that enables people using their state's Motor Vehicles Department to register to vote at the same time.
The "motor voter" measure is credited with adding millions of people to the voting rolls.

Along with conventional paper registration, two states - Arizona and Washington - have also set up voter registration on the Internet. Arizona authorities report a notable gain in registrations after the Internet site opened. Internet registration is expected to eventually expand nationwide.

The minimum age in the United States for voting is 18. It was lowered from 21 in the early
1970's in the Vietnam War era. Young people were arguing then that they could be drafted into the Army and face possible death or injury when they were 18, and because of that, they should be able to have a say in the political process. Congress agreed.

Voter registration in the United States is not conducted by the federal government. It is done by subdivisions of states called "counties." Each county's voter roll is then compiled into a state database, administered by an office called the Secretary of State. Voter registration is assisted by the efforts of civil society groups such as the League of Women Voters.

Because of the system under which voter registration is conducted, the state rolls of voters can and have been used as a political tool. Before elections, state Secretaries of State are expected to go over the rolls and purge names who are found invalid for any proper reason, such as death or moving out of the state. Because of that, there have been accusations over time that such purging was done to weaken a particular party's voting strength ahead of elections. This accusation was made, for instance, against Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, a Republican, in the 2000 election cycle. Harris was accused of selectively purging racial minority members and others deemed likely to support the opposition Democratic Party. But over the years, the Democrats have been accused of engaging in the same activity.

In the 2008 election cycle, a unit of the U.S. Department of Justice has told at least ten states to review their voting rolls. The Justice Department asserts that these states, and possibly others, appear to have more registered voters than voting-age population. Those who have pressured the Justice Department to do this say it is vital to help prevent voting fraud, the casting of ballots by people ineligible to do so. But critics contend that this pressure is purely politically motivated.

Jeffrey Young VOA-TV

This look at voter registration is part of the VOA-TV series "How America Elects."

If you want to view this and other segments of How America Elects, go to:
http://www.voanews.com/english/HowAmericaElects.cfm

I'll be posting more of Jeffrey's "primers" and you are invited to go see them yourself at the VOA website. The URL is in the previous paragraph. Thanks, Jeff.