Universal Voter Registration

California’s strength flows from a willingness to innovate and improve upon the American experiment in democracy. Recent elections underscore the importance of revamping the way we register citizens to vote, with the twin goals of registering all eligible voters and decreasing opportunities for voter fraud. Voter rolls should be complete and clean.

A Way to Empower and Engage all Californians

Pointing fingers and name-calling won't fix the problem. The way forward is to set a goal of 100 percent voter registration -- universal voter registration -- by establishing registration as a mutual responsibility of citizens and their government that is conducted through an automatic registration process. It's the best way to bring together conservatives concerned about fraud in elections and liberals concerned about low voter registration. We need a coherent system that ensures all of us can vote but none of us can vote more than once. Click here for more.

Using Drivers License and Tax Databases for Automatic Registration

The all-voluntary basis for voter registration has proven to be ineffective at producing complete or clean voter rolls. California should enact a law directing the Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Franchise Tax Board to send to the Secretary of State’s office the names and addresses of every person who would be 18 by the next election. The Secretary of State would automatically register those people to vote, enter them into the statewide voter database, and notify these new voters about their registration. This would add millions of eligible Californians to the voter rolls. Click here for more.

Empowering California's Youth: Allowing Voters to Pre-Register at Age 16

In California, nearly a third of eligible voters -- about 6.7 million Californians -- are not registered to vote. Of particular concern is that young people are more negatively impacted by our voter registation system than other demographic groups. In 2004, a presidential election year, just over half of eligible Californians between 18 and 24 years of age were registered to vote (and in nonpresidential elections that rate is even lower). This lack of civic participation is a threat to good governance and a healthy democracy. Current state law limits valuable opportunities for reaching this important and under-represented population. Click here for more.

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