When it comes to registering to vote in the United States, the burden has traditionally been on the individual: If you’re eligible to vote, it’s up to you to take the proactive steps needed to register. An increasingly popular policy called automatic voter registration, or AVR, flips that model.
As regular readers know, the idea is exactly what it sounds like: Under the policy, states automatically register eligible voters who interact with state agencies — such as getting a driver’s license — shifting the burden away from the individual. Those who want to withdraw from the system can do so voluntarily without penalty, but otherwise, Americans in states that adopt AVR are simply added to the voters rolls as a matter of course.
It’s a familiar policy in many advanced democracies, and slowly but surely, the United States is catching up. Last week, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced that automatic voter registration is coming to the Keystone State, and the Democrat has plenty of company: According to the tally from the National Conference of State Legislatures, Pennsylvania is the 24th state, plus the District of Columbia, to adopt AVR.
The policy didn’t exist in any state as recently as eight years ago, and now it’s reached nearly half of the country.
Evidently, not everyone sees this as good news. On Saturday night, five days after Shapiro’s AVR news, Donald Trump published a hysterical all-caps missive to his social media platform.
“The Democrats are trying to steal Pennsylvania again by doing the ‘automatic voter registration’ scam. They never stop! Obama and his radical left thugs are pushing this, and the Democrats, including the new liberal governor, are thrilled.”
None of this made any sense. AVR isn’t a scam; no one is trying to “steal” Pennsylvania; it wasn’t stolen before; and the reform idea is popular with plenty of officials who aren’t “radical left thugs.”
Nevertheless, the former president’s statement went on to demand that congressional Republicans and the Republican National Committee “take action now” because “our country is at stake!!!” Trump added that if his party’s officials don’t do something about automatic voter registration, “we have to throw everybody out.”
Whether he realizes this or not, if congressional Republicans were to try to “take action” and somehow target state-based AVR policies, it would take federal legislation that would never pass the Democratic-led Senate or get President Joe Biden’s signature.
For good measure, the former president returned to the subject shortly after midnight this morning, insisting in another online statement that AVR would be “a disaster for the Election of Republicans, including your favorite President, ME!” Trump added that automatic voter registration is a “totally Unconstitutional Act” — it’s really not — and the policy “will be a disaster for our Nation.” So to recap, the frontrunner for the GOP’s 2024 presidential nomination is hysterical because Pennsylvania is making the voter-registration process easier, which he believes will hurt both his party and his candidacy. Or put another way, Trump doesn’t just want to make it harder for some Americans to cast ballots, he wants to make it harder to register to vote, too. “The former president’s obsession with spreading lies about our elections is dangerous,” Shapiro’s spokesperson said in a statement. The spokesperson added, “[F]acts matter — and it is abundantly clear this commonsense, nonpartisan step to securely streamline voter registration and enhance election security is within the Governor’s executive authority. The Governor will remain focused on defending our democracy and empowering eligible Pennsylvanians to vote, no matter who they choose to support.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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