As I come close to my three-year mark as Project Vote’s program assistant and policy analyst, I find that I have spent a significant portion of my time taking charge in collecting and maintaining complete and accurate data of voter registration trends relating to compliance with federal law. Finally, starting today, I’m using this data to launch a series of informative posts where I will be sharing some interesting trends, observations, conclusions and thoughts that I have about data from upwards of 30 states.
To start this series, I find that it is important to set up how exactly Project Vote and myself collect data, in as many states as possible, and as it relates to the National Voter Registration Act. The NVRA or “Motor Voter Law” was enacted in 1993 to give people an opportunity to register to vote when they interact with government agencies, including motor vehicles offices and public assistance offices. The main ways I collect data are through litigation, settlements, or simple advocacy, as well as Freedom of Information Act requests and publicly available data.
“Now that we are in a major election year, it’s a great opportunity to provide a visual for how compliance with the NVRA can positively affect the registration of voters. “
The first state I would like to begin this series with is Georgia.
In 2011, Project Vote and its partners filed suit in federal court on behalf of the Georgia State Conference of the NAACP, the Coalition for the People’s Agenda, and an individual plaintiff, Craig Murphy for violations of Section 7 of the NVRA. The case ultimately settled in April 2012. Pursuant to the settlement agreement, the Georgia Department of Human Services (DHS) agreed to provide detailed data tracking delivered on a monthly basis. Additionally, The Georgia secretary of state agreed to provide quarterly reports of voter registration activity at DHS. The settlement agreement remained in effect until September 30, 2015.
I have been managing this data from Georgia since starting at Project Vote in June 2013. Now that we are in a major election year, it’s a great opportunity to provide a visual for how compliance with the NVRA can positively affect the registration of voters and thus, help build an electorate that is more representative of our nation’s population.
This first visual displays the totals of voter registration applications that originated from Georgia DHS, as reported to Project Vote on a quarterly basis from the Georgia secretary of state, for the duration of the settlement agreement.
It is a fact that interest in voter registration tends to peak around major elections and this is a logical conclusion reflected through the multiple turning points seen in this visual. (It is also possible that the turning points in this graph are indicative of citizens taking note of the ever-changing political and legal landscape affecting voting and registration, but that’s an idea for another post.) In order to really hit the nail on the head, a second graphic below provides substantial evidence for this observation.
Initially you notice the pattern I talked of before, the ebb and flow of voter registration through the course of time, and the peaks surrounding major elections. This graph displays information provided publicly through the Georgia SOS website, detailing the total registered individuals at certain points in time. My second observation is that voter registration activity throughout the entire state of Georgia and through all available sources of voter registration, has increased substantially during the time frame of our settlement agreement. Hmm.
As I alluded earlier, states are legally bound under the NVRA (although some states are exempt) to report every two years to the EAC a series of data that includes (but is certainly not limited to) the number of voter registrations collected at motor vehicle, public assistance, disability services, and armed forces recruitment offices.
My last and final data visualization is a profound visual of how well it works and how beneficial it is to enforce the NVRA.
In this visual, the first four columns are Georgia’s voter registrations originating from a public assistance office as reported to the EAC. The 3 (taller) columns on the right are totals from the first chart, “Georgia Reported Voter Registrations Collected at Section 7 Agency,” just condensed and beginning with 2013. To note, 2015 only includes 6 months of the year due to the settlement agreement ending. But, take a minute to look at just the 2015 column and observe that for only 6 months the column is just 20 voter registrations shy of surpassing a two-year period of collection in 2005-2006. I feel I have made my point.
Although the settlement agreement with Georgia has come to an end, my hope is that the value in voter registration at NVRA agencies is realized and efforts both on the state and local levels are continued to ensure all eligible voting populations are included in the political process.
Sources:
Georgia Secretary of State: Elections Division. Voter Registration Statistics. http://sos.ga.gov/index.php/Elections/voter_registration_statistics
U.S. Election Commission. National Voter Registration Act Studies. http://www.eac.gov/registration-data/
