Same-Day Voter Registration: Overview

Introduction

When the attention of the nation turns to elections each voting cycle, many Americans are surprised to find that electoral policy varies widely at the state and local level. Not only do states vary in terms of who is eligible to vote and when and how ballots can be cast, but also in when and how voters can register to vote. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), about one-third of the states allow voters to register when they turn up to vote, but in most states would-be voters must register in advance, with deadlines ranging from one week to one month before Election Day. To further complicate matters, voter registration and eligibility remain highly politicized issues. Those who control voting rules can influence the makeup of the electorate and, thus, the outcome of elections.

Voter eligibility has long been a hotly contested issue in the United States. As national policy enfranchised African Americans, women, and American Indians in the six decades following the Civil War, state and local political power was consolidated and maintained in many places by denying the eligibility of such voters, often by maintaining a voter registration system that excluded them. A key victory of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s was the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which struck down state-level discriminatory voting laws, but the management of elections was still generally left to state, county, and municipal governments. Adoption of same-day voter registration—whether as Election Day voter registration (EDR) or for early voting, or both—varied widely.

Unsurprisingly, given its history, voter registration remains a contentious issue. Supporters of same-day registration argue that strict voting regulations tend to disenfranchise populations already underrepresented at the polls—such as the working poor, people of color, young adults, and other more mobile populations. Proponents of advanced voter registration and other restrictions argue that these rules prevent voter fraud and contain costs and wait times, and that a committed voter who meets the deadline is likely to be the best-informed political participant.

Understanding the Discussion

Disenfranchise: To deny the right of a person or people to vote.

Election Day: Typically refers to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, on which general elections for national public office are held in the United States.

Electorate: The people who are permitted to vote in an election.

Literacy test: A qualification for voter registration in which an applicant had to read and correctly answer a series of written questions or explain a section of the state constitution, and an official would decide whether they had passed.

National Voter Registration Act (NVRA): Better known as the Motor Voter Act, a 1993 law that made registering to vote available at state motor vehicle departments as well as through mail-in application.

Poll tax: A cash fee that a prospective voter had to pay for two or three years before an election.

History

In the earliest years of the United States, voter registration depended a great deal on communities that knew each other and a limited pool of eligible voters: only white men over age twenty-one who owned property worth more than a certain amount. In 1800 Massachusetts became the first state to enact a statewide voter registration law, formalizing the system whereby assessors provided information to town election officials. The 1800 law also allowed a form of same-day voting, as town officials would consider applications for registration on election day. When property restrictions on voting were abolished in 1856, the number of eligible voters skyrocketed, and voter registration, generally accomplished by door-to-door polling, grew more common, though it remained far from universal. In many states, voter registration was riddled with fraud as political factions worked to purge opponents from the rolls. Many immigrant and impoverished neighborhoods were missed or ignored unless their vote was useful to a particular campaign.

In the decades after the Civil War, federal voting eligibility was broadened to include African American men in 1870 (via the Fifteenth Amendment), women in 1920 (via the Nineteenth Amendment), and all American Indians in 1924 (via the Indian Citizenship Act). People of Asian descent were largely barred from becoming citizens—and, thus, from voting—until the mid-twentieth century. During this time statewide voter registration systems also became more common. In 1913 Nebraska established a permanent, centralized voter registration process, managed by an election commissioner; that model was soon adopted by states around the country. However, many states continued to manipulate the electorate through the registration system, for example by conducting registrations on religious holidays or changing the process at the last minute so registrations would be disqualified.

In the former Confederate states, after federal Reconstruction ended in the late 1870s, state control over voter registration enabled whites to disenfranchise nearly all black citizens. Aided by voter intimidation, officials supporting exclusionary policies and segregation were elected, but because the Fifteenth Amendment had guaranteed African Americans the right to vote, state legislators could never outlaw that enfranchisement entirely. Instead, those states enacted restrictive voter registration laws, such as poll taxes or literacy tests, designed to ensure that it was difficult for African Americans to exercise that right. Poll taxes and literacy tests proved a barrier for many of the poorest citizens of all races and ethnicities. In Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, and Virginia, a grandfather clause allowed for the automatic registration of anyone who was eligible, or whose grandfather had been qualified, to vote before the Civil War. This clause, by definition, excluded African American men. A 1915 Supreme Court ruling invalidated grandfather clauses but upheld literacy tests. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reports that by 1940, only 3 percent of eligible black voters in the South were registered to vote.

The use of state-sanctioned voter registration to disenfranchise a population, despite a constitutional guarantee of the right to vote, led to protest after World War II. Despite violence and intimidation, voter registration drives throughout the South began in the 1950s and became widespread and well organized in the 1960s. In 1964 the Twenty-Fourth Amendment abolished poll taxes for federal elections. President Lyndon Johnson then signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, prohibiting literacy tests, and the following year the Supreme Court struck down the poll tax as an unconstitutional violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In 1973 Maine became the first state to allow same-day voter registration. The change was advanced by a Republican senator, signed into law by a Democratic governor, and met with little resistance from either party. Minnesota and Wisconsin followed suit, enacting same-day voting laws in 1974 and 1975, respectively. However, a 1977 bill to mandate nationwide same-day voter registration, proposed by President Jimmy Carter, failed in part because many believed new registrants would likely be left-leaning low-income, minority, and young voters and would thus benefit Democrats over Republicans.

Another federal bipartisan effort to facilitate voter registration was the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). Also known as the Motor Voter Act, the NVRA requires states to offer voter registration at motor vehicle departments and by mail-in application. It also requires states to comply with mandated procedures to keep updated, accurate voter registration data.

Same-Day Voter Registration Today

The issue of same-day voter registration—along with a variety of other efforts to improve voter turnout—became increasingly politicized after the year 2000. A Pew Research Center study in 2008 found that support for the Democratic Party among voters aged eighteen to twenty-nine was roughly on par with Republican support in 2000 but rose steadily in the 2004, 2006, and 2008 elections. Young voters, who also tend to be more mobile, as well as more ethnically, religiously, and economically diverse, are also more likely to benefit from same-day voter registration.

In response to this shift, by around 2010 Republican leaders in nearly half the states began blocking efforts to ease and expand voting, including same-day registration, according to the Brennan Center for Justice think tank. In Maine, a Republican-controlled legislature and Republican governor eliminated the same-day registration option in 2011, citing the possibility of fraud and overwhelming stress on election officials that can lead to errors. A people’s veto initiative overturned this decision in November of that year.

In North Carolina, a similar reversal occurred. The state instituted same-day voter registration during the early voting period in 2008. The practice was later eliminated in 2013 and then reinstated when the Fourth Circuit US Court of Appeals passed down a ruling that, among other things, alleged lawmakers had tried to disenfranchise African American voters, who tended to use same-day voter registration more often than other populations. Lawsuits by think tanks and civil rights’ organizations on the issue followed.

As some states tightened their voter registration processes, other states embraced same-day voting and other progressive initiatives. Twelve states and the District of Columbia enacted or reinstated same-day voter registration laws between 2010 and 2019. Even among states that allow same-day voter registration, however, there is considerable variation in terms of procedure. For example, some allow only a provisional ballot to be cast unless a voter can prove that they have not voted elsewhere. The standard for identity and residency verification ranges from government-issued photo identification to utility bills or paychecks.

With political polarization driving Democratic- and Republican-led states further apart, the issue of same-day voter registration seems to come down to the question of who would benefit from it being easier to vote.

The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic spurred a wave of measures to make voting safer and easier. Despite the pandemic, the United States Elections Project calculated that more than 159.69 million voters, representing 66.7 percent of those eligible, cast their ballots in the November 2020 election—a volume not seen in over a century. President Joe Biden, a Democrat, beat incumbent president Donald Trump, a Republican, in the election, prompting Trump and his supporters to allege that Democrats had stolen the election through fraud. Though the allegations were were disproven in multiple court cases, by February 2022 Republican-dominated legislatures in nineteen states passed voting laws that reversed voting practices put in place during the pandemic and/or instituted new restrictions, including on voter registration.

One of the highest-profile examples of Republican legislatures passing new restrictions on voting was Georgia's Election Integrity Act of 2021 (SB 202). Signed into law in March 2021, SB 202 generated national controversy for its impact on voting rights. One of the law's many provisions shortened the length of time between federal elections and runoff elections from nine weeks to four weeks. This effectively barred unregistered Georgia voters, who must register to vote twenty-nine days before an election, to register for federal runoff elections in time to cast their ballots. Within weeks of SB 202's enactment, voting rights groups and other opponents challenged it in eight lawsuits, including New Georgia Project v. Raffensperger, which sought an injunction against the shortened runoff election schedule and other provisions.

Texas's Senate Bill 1 (SB-1) is another high-profile example of restrictive voting legislation passed by Republican state legislatures in 2021. Signed into law in August 2021, SB-1 banned drop boxes for mail ballots as well as drive-thru voting, among other provisions, but did not change state laws regarding voter registration. In Texas, voters must be registered thirty days before an election in order to cast a ballot in it. Texas does not offer online voter registration except for voters who are registering while renewing their driver's licenses—an exception that was instituted in September 2020. The state allows all other voters to fill out a voter registration application on the Texas secretary of state's website, but they must print it out, sign it, and mail it to their county voter registrar.

About the Author

Bethany Groff Dorau is a freelance writer, museum manager, and local historian, based in West Newbury, Massachusetts. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in history and sociology and a master of arts degree in history, both from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

These essays and any opinions, information, or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

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