Yesterday, three of America’s leading voting rights organizations—including the organization I work with, Project Vote—wrote to the President of the United States urging his Administration to ensure that all eligible citizens are afforded access to the ballot. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act, an otherwise signature achievement, has thus far failed to ensure that applicants receive the voter registration services that are required by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. This is a violation of federal law and has resulted in the loss of as many as 1.7 million voter registrations during the first two ACA enrollment periods.
The NVRA was enacted more than 20 years ago with strong bipartisan support. It is among the few pieces of federal legislation that is designed to increase voter registration. Indeed, I would argue that compliance with the NVRA is even more important now as states are increasingly introducing oppressive laws to hinder voter participation; and this without key protections of the Voting Rights Act after the Shelby County v. Holder decision. As a democracy, we should do everything in our power to increase voter participation, not suppress it.
By way of quick background, the NVRA helps to increase voter registration by requiring certain governmental entities to affirmatively provide voter registration services. Specifically, the NVRA requires that individuals receive voter registration opportunities when interacting with driver’s license bureaus and when applying for services through agencies that administer a variety of public assistance programs, including Medicaid. Because the federal government now provides Medicaid and other forms of public assistance in numerous states through Federally Facilitated Exchanges (FFEs), it should also comply with the NVRA and provide voter registration services.
The Obama Administration’s failure to provide voter registration services to people who apply for health care through the FFEs is not merely a lost opportunity to increase the numbers of eligible persons who register and vote. It is a violation of the NVRA and is actually decreasing the numbers of voter registration applications submitted in states that rely on FFEs for ACA enrollment. For example, after the Medicaid enrollment process was taken over by the FFE in Mississippi, the average number of voter registrations per month dropped by more than 80%. In Ohio, despite a significant increase in the number of people applying for Medicaid benefits after the ACA passed, the number of voter registrations from public assistance clients has actually dropped by over 15%.
The NVRA’s requirements are uncomplicated and easy to implement. We know that state-based health benefit exchanges are either in compliance or actively working towards full NVRA compliance. In fact, just last week, I conducted a training of over 1,000 in-person assistors for the New York State of Health, the health benefit exchange run by the state of New York. It was a privilege to train these in-person assistors, many of whom work in their own local communities. And because of the voter registration training, they now will have an opportunity to make their local communities stronger and more inclusive. The New York State of Health’s online portal, telephone application system, and its in-person application assistors all offer voter registration both online and by mail to its clients. This is precisely what the federal government should be doing.
Consider the alternative if the FFEs fail to comply with the NVRA. Both New York and New Jersey afford their citizens the opportunity to apply for Medicaid through the health benefits exchange. Citizens of both New York and New Jersey are conferred the same rights under the NVRA. But citizens of New Jersey are denied voter registration services that New Yorkers get simply because in New Jersey, the health exchange is run by the federal government. Are citizens of New Jersey less deserving of voting rights under the NVRA than those citizens across the bridge or tunnel (take your pick) in New York? Absolutely not.
Project Vote, Demos, and the League of Women Voters urge the Obama Administration to comply with the NVRA without further delay.
Niyati Shah is an election counsel with Project Vote.
