Sen. Schumer Introduces Legislation Requiring All States to Offer Early Voting

Sen. Charles Schumer

U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer recently introduced three bills designed to expand access to voting in the United States.

Schumer, ranking member of the Rules Committee that has jurisdiction over laws governing election administration, is seeking to put in place federal safeguards that would prevent individual states from curtailing practices that ensure all Americans have access to the ballot box, including early voting and online registration.

“Today, on the eve of the 50^th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, we should be celebrating the progress we have made. Unfortunately, the right to vote in this country is still under attack,” Schumer said.

He added:

“In an effort to limit the pool of potential voters, nefarious forces have sought to make it more difficult to get registered to vote, prevent or decrease early voting, and increase bureaucratic hurdles to limit participation at the ballot box. Those efforts are backwards, wrong, and they must be stopped cold. These bills would make it easier for Americans to vote, period. In a polarized Democracy, individuals of all political stripes ought to be able to agree that we should make it as easy as possible for voters to participate in the process. This legislation would do just that, and I’m hopeful it will earn bipartisan support.”

This bill would:

• Provide that an online version of the federal mail voter registration application will be made available by the Election Assistance Commission for use by all Americans who are eligible to register to vote.
• Provide that states that establish their own electronic registration form that complies with the requirements of the federal form may request to have their residents directed to the applicable state form. This electronic voter registration application also would a voter to send an electronic cancellation request to the registrants’ prior jurisdiction.
• Provide that the United States Postal Service’s online version of the National Change of Address form will connect to the federal online voter registration application to allow individuals to have the opportunity to register to vote online when changing an address with the post office online. This is simply good governance. Many Americans believe that updating their address with USPS updates their address for voting purposes.  Unfortunately that is not the case, but it should be streamlined as much as possible to help Americans keep their voter registration current.
• Set the voter registration deadline at 28 days before Election Day, which will always be a Tuesday with mail delivery. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 established that a state could not have a voter registration deadline exceeding 30 days before Election Day.
• ensure that all states provide at least a week of early voting or not require an excuse to vote absentee.
• require that states, at a minimum, either hold early voting for eight hours per day on seven consecutive days during the 10-day period preceding the date of a federal election or make absentee ballots available to voters without an excuse.
• allow voters to, after registering with the state, be able to update their registration and vote on Election Day. The bill provides that a voter who has previously registered in a state shall be allowed to update their address within the state up to Election Day.

 

The More You Know: Proposed PA Bill Would Allow for Early Voting

This week, we wanted to make you aware of various pieces of election-related legislation that has just been sitting in committee.

One of these bills, SB 1152, was introduced in 2013 by Sen. Daylin Leach.

Senate Bill 1152 deals with early voting.

More specifically, the bill would provide for polling places to be open across the commonwealth for the two weeks prior to Election Day. No excuse would be required to vote early and the polling places would be public, centrally located and well published, just as they are on Election Day.

In his co-sponsorship memo, Leach said:

“My bill is modeled on Florida’s successful early voting provisions, in place for the 2008 election cycle. Early voting sites would be open 8 hours every week day and a total of 8 hours every weekend in the two weeks leading up to election day. No one who votes early would be allowed to vote on Election Day, just as absentee voters are barred from voting on Election Day, and results of early voting would not be tabulated until after polls close on Election Day to prevent early returns from influencing later voting.”

The lack of early voting was one of several reasons Pennsylvania got poor marks in a recent study regarding access to the polls. To read more that Common Cause report, click here.

If you want to see SB 1152 go to the full Senate for consideration, write to your state senator and ask them to support it. Don’t know who your senator is? Click here.

American Voting Preferences Says Voting Booths are Going Out of Style

Voting booths are so passe.

Or so says new analysis by the Data Freaks over at Forbes out of Utah.

In a recent story published on Forbes, a report found that 21 percent of voters prefer voting by mail and 20 percent prefer voting via the Internet.

The author adds:

These voter attitudes, coupled with no assurance of federal funds to update voting equipment, make in-person voting seem like an endangered species and a shift to Internet voting seem like an inevitable reality.

Also of interest? This tidbit:

We found that voters generally prefer the mode of voting they used in 2014. In other words, it’s no surprise that different people like different things so maybe part of the solution to low voter turnout is simply providing more options. Holding aside those voters who would prefer to vote via the Internet, in 2014 nearly half of all Utah voters said they prefer voting in person. In our study, we asked why. It turns out that these voters prefer in-person voting because it satisfies a sense of duty (64 percent), it is what they have always done (34 percent), because it is convenient (31 percent), and / or because it fosters a sense of community (26 percent).

Check out our website for more information on early voting and its effect on voter turnout, as well as other reforms that have been proposed to offer voters greater access to the polls.