Motor Voter Madness
March 2, 2021
Back in 1993 Congress passed, and Bill Clinton signed, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), more commonly known as the "Motor Voter" law. Under this law, states were to offer voter registration opportunities through their motor vehicle agencies. Obtaining or renewing a driver license? Register to vote. Seems like a reasonable idea, because registering to vote shouldn't be difficult.
In Pennsylvania there was a little "glitch" in implementing the NVRA, as it resulted in non-citizens becoming registered to vote, despite not being able to legally vote. After a report out of Philadelphia, and some hearings by the House State Government Committee, PennDOT allegedly cleaned this up so non-citizens would no longer be presented with voter registration offers while interacting with PennDOT.
But motor vehicle agencies were not the only state entities covered under this law. Any office in a covered state that provides either public assistance or state-funded programs primarily engaged in providing services to persons with disabilities must offer voter-registration services. Armed Forces recruitment offices must also provide voter registration services.
In addition, a state must designate other offices as voter-registration agencies. Such other agency designations may include state or local government offices such as public libraries, public schools, state colleges, universities and community colleges, city and county clerks offices, marriage license offices, fishing and hunting license offices, government revenue offices, and unemployment compensation offices.
This is all fine for making registering to vote easier, but I wanted to show you some statistics from public agencies in Pennsylvania, as reported to the General Assembly by the Department of State in its 2019 report on the administration of voter registration.
This sure seems like a whole lot of time and taxpayer resources expended on soliciting voter registrations from those who either do not need or want to be registered to vote, or perhaps from those who cannot legally be registered to vote. And let's be honest - that list of state agencies does not exactly scream conservative Republican voters.
Look, I don't have any problem at all with making it more convenient to register to vote. But it sure seems like these agencies are trying as hard as they can under the NVRA to bolster voter registration numbers, and not among folks who typically share our values.
I am currently looking at another method the left has employed to bolster the voter rolls, and you will likely raise your eyebrows when you hear about its many tentacles and capabilities. Stay tuned...
