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Automatic voter registration grows rolls a lot, study finds

Automatic registration laws have significantly increased the number of people signed up to vote, a new study finds.

Fifteen states and Washington, D.C., have enacted laws in the past five years under which anyone eligible to vote is registered when they interact with a government agency, such as a department of motor vehicles, unless those people ask to opt out.


The liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School, which supports easier ballot access, studied the eight jurisdictions where the laws have been on the books long enough to generate significant data. They concluded the voter rolls had surged significantly in each place above what the increase would have been without automatic voter registration. The biggest gain was in Georgia, where the ranks of registered voters soared from 6 million to almost 7 million between 2014 and last fall — what the Brennan Center viewed as a 94 percent increase above what would have been expected without the new law.

The other gains:

  • Vermont: 60 percent
  • Rhode Island: 47 percent
  • Alaska: 34 percent
  • California: 27 percent
  • Colorado: 16 percent
  • Oregon: 16 percent
  • Washington, D.C.: 9 percent

Automatic voter registration is one of a handful of voting rights proposals in H.R. 1, which the Democratic House passed along party lines but the Republican-majority Senate does not plan to debate.

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Texas redistricting maps

Two bills have been introduced to Congress that aim to ban mid-decade redistricting on the federal level and contain provisions making an exception for mid-decade redistricting.

Tamir Kalifa/Getty Images

Congress Bill Spotlight: Anti-Rigging Act, Banning Mid-Decade Redistricting As Texas and California Are Attempting

Trump claims Republicans are “entitled” to five more Texas House seats.

Context: in the news

In August, the Republican-controlled Texas state legislature approved a rare “mid-decade” redistricting for U.S. House seats, with President Donald Trump’s encouragement.

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Independent Madness- or How the Cheshire Cat Can Slay the Gerrymander

The Cheshire Cat (John Tenniel) Devouring the Gerrymander (Elkanah Tisdale )

Independent Madness- or How the Cheshire Cat Can Slay the Gerrymander

America has a long, if erratic, history of expanding its democratic franchise. Over the last two centuries, “representation” grew to embrace former slaves, women, and eighteen-year-olds, while barriers to voting like literacy tests and outright intimidation declined. Except, that is, for one key group, Independents and Third-party voters- half the electorate- who still struggle to gain ballot access and exercise their authentic democratic voice.

Let’s be realistic: most third parties aren't deluding themselves about winning a single-member election, even if they had equal ballot access. “Independents” – that sprawling, 40-percent-strong coalition of diverse policy positions, people, and gripes – are too diffuse to coalesce around a single candidate. So gerrymanderers assume they will reluctantly vote for one of the two main parties. Relegating Independents to mere footnotes in the general election outcome, since they’re also systematically shut out of party primaries, where 9 out of 10 elections are determined.

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