Pennsylvania governor announces automatic voter registration in key swing state

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro introduced Tuesday — which is National Voter Registration Day — that the state will now robotically check in citizens to vote whilst getting their driving force’s license or state I.D.

“I made a commitment when I was campaigning for this office that we would bring automatic voter registration to Pennsylvania and break down the barriers for legal eligible voters,” Shapiro stated in a video posted on social media.

“This is a key step to make our elections more secure,” he stated.

Automatic voter registration (AVR) is the method through which individuals are robotically registered to vote as they input their non-public information into different govt businesses, equivalent to a Department of Motor Vehicles. Residents have the selection to decide out of being registered.

A Pennsylvania Department of State spokesperson advised ABC News that individuals who aren’t eligible to vote is probably not introduced with the voter registration display all the way through any of the DMV processes.

Jessie Allen, a regulation professor on the University of Pittsburgh, advised ABC News that voter registration may just assist join individuals who would in a different way overlook to check in to vote. People who would have as an alternative scrambled to check in with reference to Election Day is not going to have to fret about their standing, she stated.

“If you have to take an affirmative step to do it, then you might wind up being closed out of an opportunity that you’re otherwise eligible for; you just haven’t checked the box. This way, if you’re automatically registered, because you have a driver’s license, and you realize two weeks before an election, you want to vote; you’ll be able to vote,” Allen stated.

It additionally may just assist with vote casting file accuracy, Allen stated.

“Voter records are already often linked with motor vehicles, because they want people to be accurate. So this way, for example, if somebody changes, addresses, or gets married and changes their name, and goes and gets a new driver’s license, it would automatically update the voting record, and make it more accurate.”

But some criticized the transfer, arguing there may well be downsides to increasing the pool of electorate.

“Making it easier for uninterested, uninformed people to wield political power will inevitably lead to terrible political choices. It expands the pool of citizens to conscript into jury duty, and gives more votes to harvest,” the Libertarian Party of Pennsylvania said.

Previously, 24 states (together with the District of Columbia) had carried out AVR, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

And with Pennsylvania being a battleground state, AVR generally is a significant component for Pennsylvania electorate heading into the 2024 election.

“Part of the reason why this is somewhat of a big story is that Pennsylvania was also one of the states that was being pretty heavily challenged in terms of voting in the 2020 presidential election,” William Rosenberg, a political science professor at Drexel University, advised ABC News.

Although Pennsylvania flipped blue in 2020 with out AVR, Rosenberg says that AVR may just nonetheless be noticed as a drawback to Republicans, as a result of “when it becomes easier and easier to vote, it’s to the disadvantage of Republican candidate, because that means that there’s likely to be more turnout, particularly among Democrats that might be somewhat disadvantaged by the prior restrictions that are in place.”

Pennsylvania’s governor framed AVR as being vital for the state’s long term.

“Now more than ever, we need an engaged citizenry to move our country and our commonwealth forward,” Shapiro stated in the video posted to social media.