New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie slammed a voter registration method as a political ploy this week while speaking in Illinois.
“Same-day registration, all of sudden, this year comes to Illinois. Shocking. It’s shocking. I’m sure it was all based on public policy, good public policy to get same-day registration here in Illinois just this year when the governor is in the toilet and needs as much help as he can get,” Christie said Monday, according to The Chicago Tribune. He was campaigning for Republican Bruce Rauner, who is challenging Illinois’ Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn this November. Christie chairs the Republican Governors Association.
Same-day voter registration is one of the more effective voter registration methods. It allows eligible voters to register to vote and cast their ballots all in one day. Republicans complain that it makes election vulnerable to fraud. North Carolina and Ohio, two swing states that have implemented restrictions on voting, both eliminated early voting.
Ten states and the District of Columbia offer same-day registration. Utah is testing out a same-day voter registration pilot program through 2016.
Christie revved up volunteers at a campaign headquarters meeting, where he criticized Democrats for using “every trick in the book” to help the governor win re-election, according to the Tribune.
“Now I see that the courts ruled that the Libertarian candidate can be on the ticket but the Green Party candidate can’t. Another really interesting development. I said to a group of people this morning, ‘You people in Illinois make New Jersey people blush.’ I mean, this is really, just unbelievable right?” Christie told the crowd, incorrectly stating that a court had kept a Green Party candidate off the ballot—it was actually the State Board of Elections, which is composed equally of Republicans and Democrats, that took a Green Party candidate off the ballot because of a lack of valid nominating petition signatures.
Jane Timm