Voting inefficiencies costing governments millions in wasteful spending

A May 6 report by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund in conjunction with IL PIRG Education Fund, studying ineffective voter-registration systems estimates that goverments could save millions of taxpayer dollars by moderizing voter registration.

The report examined data from more than 100 counties located across the country and found that municipalities spent more than $33 million correcting registration errors on top of countless hours of election officials’ time. used to fix the problems. 

The report recommends a mandate of affirmative and automatic registration, which would take the onus of registering to vote off citizens and place it with the government. By streamlining the registration system and linking existing databases with state voter rolls, local governments could free up significant resources to address more pressing problems and remove much of the financial burden of administering elections.

Earlier this year, Tova Wang, vice president of research for Common Cause, testified before the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties regarding problems and irregularities at the polls during the 2008 election. Wang pointed out in the federal hearing that despite the overall low rate of election administration errors in 2008, “between 4 and 5 million people reported they could not vote because of registration and absentee ballot problems.”  Moreover, she added, “9 million people are not registered to vote in this country because of the administrative hurdles of missing a registration deadline and residency rules.” Read her testimony. (Thanks to the Nonprofit Voter Engagement e-newsletter for highlighting this information.)