Millions Wasted On Voter Registration In 2008 Election: Study

Local counties wasted millions of dollars in cumbersome, error-ridden voter registration processes in the 2008 election, a new study finds.

A survey conduced by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group found that 100 counties across the country collectively spent over $33 million on simple registration and error-correction processes.

"There is massive amount of wasted funds out of county elections budgets that are spent on implementing antiquated registration systems," said the report's author, U.S. PIRG's Lisa Gilbert, in an interview with the Huffington Post. "If we had an automated system, none of that money would need to have been spent at all."

Gilbert's report, titled "Saving Dollars, Saving Democracy," breaks down the average dollar amount wasted according to county size. Counties with fewer than 50,000 people tended to waste about $86,977 on average. Jurisdictions with up to 200,000 people blew about $248,091 and counties with up to a million residents burned over $1,079,610, on average.

The report recommends federal action to create an automated system: "A more streamlined and automatic system linking existing databases with the state voter rolls could free up significant resources at the local level."

An added bonus is that an automated system could also free up the national discourse from the sort of tiresome voter-fraud chatter that dogged 2008 election coverage.

"One great thing about an automatic system would be that whether or not you believe voter fraud happens, this system would eliminate it," Gilbert said.

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Comments

[Aranxa]

Well, that's just the price of keeping one's undesirables off the rolls.

[solopico]

I don't know about other states, but in Arizona we can register at the Motor Vehicle Website. It's secure and quick, you can print a confirmation, and you receive your registration card quickly.

Seems that's as easy as any other option.

[Root]

This is in-line with a Brennan Center for Justice proposal to adopt "universal voter registration" that is gaining traction in Congress. Interestingly, it is also supported by groups like ACORN who would rather do community organizing than registering voters (this coming from their political director).

We'll have to see if Specter is willing to support meaningful election reform now that he is supposedly a Democrat. Politico is reporting that over the weekend he slipped and expressed support for Coleman's bid to overturn the Minnesota court ruling in favor of Franken. Meaningful reform is going to require all 60 Democratic Senators. Some of the conservative Democratic Senators are wavering on the non-existant vote fraud issue, so it may be difficult to get reform through the Senate.

[blueskybigstar]

Do you think the effort to disenfranchise voters worked against tax payer money to register people? Could that be a cause of much of the waste?

[NoBlinky]

Yes. I think that if there were one standard way of registering voters, updating address records, and validating the registration at the polling place, and the same system were used in every county, township, city, and precinct in the US, it would be harder to mislead voters about whether they are properly registered or not.... and it would be cheaper to administer.

[MJinCanada]

What an excellent point!

[blueskybigstar]

Voter reform now. On Democracy Now experts said that Obama would have won another 7 million votes except for Republican cheating.

[research]

Just make sure there is a paper trail.

[blueskybigstar]

Research,
Carolab and I are starting a website about research, debate, and getting to the bottom of issues. Once we get it going, I would be proud for you to have your own column.
John

[openhand]

Nothing compared to the waste on the GOP campaign, all for what?

[tiotom77]

If you want to vote go to an official registration office..Li­ke the DMV..not in the street

[Grunty1]

I register at my polling station. Doesn't get much easier than that!

[tippydog11]

rather be worried about the $$Billions $$billions lost in tax revenue in 19,000 mail boxes and tax havens around the world--those who pay no taxes at all...but live free in peace in this country...­take take take--and give nothing but boast only...be more worried about the $2.++ Trillion tax dollars lost in tax revenues, when Bush lowered the taxes and gave massive tax loop holes to the wealthy...­in 8 years---talk about Health Care--no money?? Putting America in debt?/ Who was putting and adding to National debt?

[WarSkeptic]

This sounds like an excuse to try to cut funding for voter registration. I'm highly skeptical

"100 counties across the country collectively spent over $33 million" (on registration)
I'm not clear that this is a huge amount of money. There's certainly no context given to show that.

"Counties with fewer than 50,000 people tended to waste about $86,977 on average"
Again, they are writing it to make it sound like a lot. But $90,000 will pay for about 3-4 full time workers.
4 workers per country for registration does not sound totally crazy to me

[Shashi0224]

I agree with you. The easier it is to register, the more convenient, the better. It is the republicans who don't want Americans to vote because when Americans vote, Democrats win.
Why can't an American citizen who turns 18 according to their social security card, be issued a voter card.....i­t's the easiest way. One number, one voter....i­f your number matches and your address matches you can vote.....A­NYWHERE in the country.
Also, have election week, not election day.....OR have election day be a national holiday like Christmas.­..at least election day is celebrated by everyone, or should be, having the day off would enable everyone to vote.
Voting is a responsibility. It should not be a burden.

[MJinCanada]

Good point. About a $1 per registration form isn't that much, really.

[wdw505]

it is a dollar per voter

[tiotom77]

Registration should be done at an official registration headquarte­rs..not in the street

[Grunty1]

Kind of like Rushpublican meetings should be held in public, not on hate radio?

[DeadPhish]

Voter Fraud is a farce...

It's Election Fraud that we have to be concerned about, and THAT is a Republican thing.

[Shashi0224]

Absolutely!! You are 100% right. They stole at least 2 presidential elections and countless local races with election fraud.
It is almost impossible to have voter fraud. It's just another republican talking point to hid their crimes.

[Disdain]

You should tell the federal government! They are still investigating ACORN for voter registration fraud! I'm sure they don't know!

[BUTCHER111]

Universal Voter Registration is the way to go. Everyone is automatically registered to vote, voter registration fraud fixed, as are some of the other problems people have on election day.

[funinthesun]

Agreed , it's the only way to go. The government has all the information it needs on most people anyway such as a Social Security number. When the person turns 18 inform them they are registered to vote. Only if there's in issue such as address change do they to get it corrected.

[AdV2k1]

Obama we need election reform. Yes you won, but still we need election reform.

Nation wide early voting for 2 weeks.
Statewide provisional e-voting (You can vote anywhere in your state and it will count)
Paper trail for all electronic ballots
Randomized districting maps for congressional seats. No more drawing favorable lines, the computer will draw random equal shares of the state for the person. You will win on your merits and ideas NOT on how well they draw a map.

All these things put together will help the nation, Drastically.

[wdw505]

however it is called election day not election half month.....­.i believe election day is defined in the constitution though

[-0013]

Good luck rewriting the Constitution.

[sweetpaws]

The Constitution says:
Article I, Section 4: "Section 4. The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators."

As for the Presidency, that is ultimately determined by the electoral college:
Article II, Section 1: "The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States. "

There is nothing in the Constitution preventing a state from having early voting running for a two week period of time. Election Day is actually set up by Congress and wasn't uniformly set to be the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November until 1845. So a nation-wide two week voting period could be enacted by Congress. Likewise, each state legislature can set their own time periods for casting ballots.

[DontJustFollow]

excellent ideas and supported by both parties by a huge majority -

unfortunately they will never fly because they politicians (both sides) cannot allow a system that is to hard to corrupt.

Can you imagine a representative giving up his jerrymandered safe district for one that could hold him responsible for his actions ????

[Okeif]

As long as it is NOT Diebold(Premier) Election Systems in charge of the autmation.