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Election Day Registration: Best Practices

Learn More:
Same Day Registration/Election Day Registration | Voter Registration

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Guest Opinion: Montana's Election-Day Registration Successful

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May 27, 2009

Election Day Registration Bill Passes Connecticut General Assembly

Statement from Demos President Miles Rapoport

Hartford, Connecticut--Yesterday, the Connecticut House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow the state's citizens to register and vote on Election Day.   In response, Miles Rapoport, former Connecticut Secretary of State and President of Demos, a national public policy center, issued the following statement praising the vote, urging the state Senate to vote on the bill before the end of session, and asking Governor Rell to sign it into law:

"Demos applauds the Connecticut House of Representatives for their vote to pass Election Day Registration into law. This is a critical election reform that should increase voter participation and amplify the voices of Connecticut residents in the state's democratic process. In the nine other states where citizens can register and vote on the same day, voter participation rates are, in Presidential Election years, consistently 7 to 12 percentage points over states without an Election Day Registration law.

“These laws helped over 1.5 million American citizens register and vote in the November 2008 general election, including more than 253,000 in North Carolina, which is one of the most recent states to pass a law allowing citizens to register and vote on the same day.  According to several published national surveys and reports, Election Day Registration has been recognized by election officials as a manageable process that has not led to increased fraud or problems at the polls.

"The State of Connecticut could experience similar increases in voter turnout under Election Day Registration, with tens of thousands of residents added to the rolls and casting their vote. Among them would be the 400,000 eligible state residents that were not registered to vote in the 2008 Presidential Election.  

"We support this bill being swiftly passed into law and fully implemented.  However, it does contain a few shortcomings that should be corrected in the future.  The bill does not offer registration at polling sites, as practiced in most other Election Day Registration states; anticipates that election administrators will run voter registration information through the statewide voter database, on the spot and in real-time; and requires election officials to check with the Registrar of Voters of an applicant’s previous town before processing a change of address. These provisions add steps to the process that may diminish Election Day Registration’s achievement of its full potential for greatly increasing voter participation in Connecticut.

“This legislation is, nonetheless, a significant step towards opening up the democratic process in Connecticut to more citizens. We urge the Senate to pass the bill and Governor Rell to swiftly sign it into law and allow the people of Connecticut to gain from the substantial benefits of Election Day Registration."

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