Same-Day Registration – “Who are those people?”

Following Nick’s lead, I would like to add my own soapbox commentary on election-day voting rights.

Over the past week, I’ve had several conversations with people about my opposition to same-day voter registration. Proponents argue that same-day registration — that is, allowing unregistered (but legally eligible) voters to register to vote at the polls on election day — promotes democratic integrity, ensuring that every voice is heard. And a more sinister (in my opinion) argument is that same-day registration is necessary to protect minorities from being politically disenfranchised (which somehow implies that “minorities” aren’t able to register otherwise).

While I certainly support voting rights legislation (I’m looking at you, poll taxes), same-day registration is an open invitation for fraud and populist (read: “mob”) vote chasing. In my opinion, same-day registration encourages politicians (or dubious PACs) to round up everyone they can off the street and bus them to the polls. Anecdotal evidence of "vote-trading" schemes abounds, and there is little evidence to suggest that same-day registration does anything to help “enfranchise” minorities (whatever that means), or that voter ID legislation “disenfranchises” them either (whatever that means, too).

Protecting voting rights means protecting the integrity of people’s votes. Do we really want some voters to vote two or three times each?