Voter registration in the United States

The United States is a democracy, which means citizens have the right to choose their leaders by voting in elections. Elections in the United States are held every year on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. This is known as Election Day. US residents vote for local, state, and federal officials each year as terms expire. They hold Congressional elections every two years where they vote for half of the Senate and House of Representatives each time. The Presidential elections are helf every four years. The Congressional elections held in the "off-year" cyle are referred to as mid-term elections. State and local governments are in charge of running elections in their respective regions.

All US citizens over the age of eighteen have the right to vote regardless of disability, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation. Some states allow seventeen-year-olds to vote under certain circumstances. While voting is not required in the United States, the right to vote is very important. Many groups—including women and Black Americans—did not always have this right and had to fight for it. Voting gives residents a say in who they want to lead them.

All eligible US citizens in every state except North Dakota must register to vote before they can cast their ballots. Registration laws are in place to prevent voter fraud. Voter registration laws and processes as well as residency and voter identification requirements vary from state to state.

History of Voting

When the United States became an official country in the eighteenth century, it had many restrictive voting laws. When it was first written, the United States Constitution only granted the right to vote to White males who were at least twenty-one years old. These men also had to be landowners and meet certain religious requirements.

In 1856, the country dropped land and religious requirements for voters. In 1870, the United States adopted the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which gave all men the right to vote, regardless of race. However, not all states agreed with this. Many states rushed to enact laws that required voters to pay poll taxes and pass literacy tests in an effort to prevent and discourage Black Americans from voting.

Although some women had the right to vote in certain states, the majority of women in the United States could not vote prior to 1920. The passage of the Nineteenth Amendment gave all women who were at least twenty-one years of age the right to vote. The enactment of the Twenty-Fourth Amendment in 1964 made charging poll taxes illegal. Voting rights were changed in 1965 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed literacy tests and other practices that prevented some marginalized groups from voting. Voting laws changed again when the Twenty-Sixth Amendment lowered the required voting age to eighteen in 1971.

Registering to Vote

All states except North Dakota require all eligible voters to follow a registration process before they can exercise their right to vote. If a person is not registered they cannot vote. The states control their own registration laws and requirements vary. For example, some states require voters to show an identification card to vote while others do not. Some states also require a person to be a resident for a set amount of time before they can register to vote in that state.

Many states began requiring residents to register to vote in the early nineteenth century as a means of disenfranchisement. At this time, many immigrants were coming to the United States. No laws existed that prohibited these foreigners from voting. This worried many state leaders who did not want non-citizens voting. Some states developed a registration system to ensure that only US citizens could vote in elections. Others held registrations at inopportune times to ensure immigrants and others, such as the poor working class, were excluded.

By the early twentieth century, some states enacted laws limiting certain groups from voting. This was prevalent in the South, where many people discriminated against Black Americans under so-called Jim Crow laws. Election officials sometimes discredited votes based on the voter’s race. Constitutional amendments eventually abolished these discriminatory practices, but many states still had their own registration requirements in place. Some states eased their registration processes and extended deadlines, which allowed the working class and immigrants to register. However, other states still followed strict registration rules.

By the end of the twentieth century, a vast array of voting requirements existed throughout the states. The sometimes difficult and confusing registration process turned away many would-be voters. In an attempt to simplify the registration process and encourage more residents to register to vote, President Bill Clinton signed the National Voter Registration Act in 1993. The law allowed all state residents to register to vote by mail or in person at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) or at other public offices. The new law had a positive effect on voter registration, and nine million new voters registered to vote after the bill became a law in 1995.

By 2014, voters in nearly every state could use the National Mail Voter Registration Form to register by mail. They could also use the form to change registration information such as name, address, or political party affiliation. Residents could register in person at the DMV, public assistance or state agencies, local election offices, armed services recruitment centers, and more. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), by September 2022, forty-two states, the District of Columbia, and Guam allowed online voter registration. The NCSL also reported that at that time, twenty-two states and the District of Columbia had laws in place allowing qualified residents to register at the same time that they voted. States continued to have varying rules, so residents should always check with their state's election office for specific requirements regarding voter registration.

Regulations over voter registration also increasingly became a subject of contention in the hyperpartisan political atmosphere of the early twenty-first century. This rendered registration and voting by mail more difficult.

In the twenty-first century, the demographics of the United States underwent great change. The United States mirrored a global environment shared by economically advanced countries. This was where native-born populations saw declining birth rates and longer life expectancies. Older population segments grew in numbers, while younger age groups contracted. Many Western democracies, such as the United States, met labor shortfalls by encouraging the entry of large numbers of immigrant workers. After several generations, the descendants of the more recently arrived immigrants grew as a percentage of voters. For example, in Texas, Hispanics became the majority population in 2023. Other societal traits also changed, such as a reduction in the number of those who practiced religious faiths. Many native-born groups came to believe their traditional and cultural predominance to be at risk by the changed societal demographics. These nativists also belived minority groups were more predisposed to vote for Democratic candidates and sought to arrest these changes by inhibiting others from voting.

In general, progressives favored policies making it easier to register and vote, arguing that this was a form of social justice and would benefit the democratic process. In contrast, many conservatives supported legislation imposing stricter rules around voter registration, such as mandatory photo identification and registration deadlines before elections. They argued these policies were necessary to preserve the integrity of elections and avoid voter fraud. However, experts agreed that significant voter fraud was exceptionally rare in US elections. By the 2020safter the ruling in the Supreme Court case Shelby County v. Holder in 2013 had weakened the Voting Rights Actmany Republican-backed restrictive policies around voter registration and voting were increasingly criticized as veiled voter suppression, targeting people of color in particular. The Brennan Center for Justice reported that between early January and early December 2022, at least seven states had enacted ten restrictive voting laws.

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