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"A comprehensive, collaborative elections resource."
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Why I'm Not Voting Today
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| Parent(s) |
Issue
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| Contributor | Homegrown Democrat |
| Last Edited | Homegrown Democrat Nov 02, 2010 04:34pm |
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| Category | Blog Entry |
| Author | Anna North |
| News Date | Tuesday, November 2, 2010 09:55:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | I won't be voting in today's elections. The reason: I made a mistake. But so did my state, and thirty-nine others.
I can't vote today, because I didn't register in time. New York State's voter registration forms had to be postmarked or filled out in person by October 8, and I missed that deadline. Obviously, this was really stupid of me. I have lived in New York since September 2009, and have had ample time to register. Also, my job involves reading and writing about the news — I was reminded daily that an election was coming up and I needed to register, and still I forgot. I'm definitely at fault here, and I feel pretty bad.
However! Requiring voter registration nearly a month before an election is also bad for democracy. Nine states — including Iowa, where I lived and voted before I moved to New York — allow election-day voter registration in some form or another, and those states have significantly higher voter turnout. According to a study by the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, "residents of states with 30-day closing deadlines were anywhere from 3 to 9 percent less likely to turnout than residents of states with election day voter registration." Public policy research group Demos.org reports an even greater effect, "States with EDR have historically boasted turnout rates 10 to 12 percentage points higher than states that do not offer Election Day Registration." The Caltech/MIT researchers say registration deadlines have a greater effect on turnout than any other voting-practices policy, be it polling place hours or absentee ballot regulations. |
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