Co-Sponsorship Memo Details

I plan to reintroduce legislation amending the Election Code to provide for Election Day Registration (EDR).  By implementing an EDR process, eligible persons are able to register and vote on the same day of any primary, municipal or general election by completing a registration card and providing proof of residence.
 
Eleven states allow for registration on or before the day of an election: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming, plus the District of Columbia.  Advantages include increased voter accessibility and convenience, fewer provisional ballots to be processed, and a reduction in people turned away for not pre-registering properly.  Also, by allowing voter registration to continue up to and including election day, voters can take into account the news, debates, advertisements or any other aspects of a candidate’s campaign taking place in that period of time.

Of the various elections administration policies, researchers contend that same-day registration has the most impact on increasing voter turnout.  Four of the top five states for voter turnout in the 2012 presidential election all offered election-day registration.  Average voter turnout was over 10 percentage points higher in same-day registration states compared to other states.  The trend was also present in the 2010 midterm elections.  Average turnout in election-day registration states was nearly 6 percentage points higher than in non-EDR states.

I invite you to join me as a co-sponsor of this legislation.  It is a reintroduction of SB 364 of the previous legislative session.  Co-sponsors included:  COSTA, BROWNE, TEPLITZ, BREWSTER, SMITH, FARNESE, LEACH and WOZNIAK