Having spent many hours speaking with individuals at public assistance offices and motor vehicle offices throughout the country, I have developed a unique appreciation of the importance of this opportunity. And the data I’m about the share only supports my thoughts on the issue: access to voter registration is vital to our democracy.
After Project Vote and partners filed suit in July 2009, the defendants, including the New Mexico Motor Vehicle Divisions (MVD), ultimately settled in July of 2010 and immediately began reporting data to Project Vote. Although the New Mexico Human Services Department (HSD) was included as a defendant in the filing of 2009, they did not settle until early 2011. The agreement with HSD ended in March 2015, but the agency continues to provide monthly reports to Project Vote. The order with the MVD ended in July 2014 and they ceased providing reports until Project Vote and partners sent this letter to the state. Reporting started back up again in October 2015 and continues presently.
New Mexico’s data gives me an opportunity to set the record straight on an often-misguided assumption that motor vehicles offices are where people register to vote the most. In reality, motor vehicles offices are not the only place where the opportunity for voter registration renders positive results. Keep reading to see how this works.
There are many trends in voter registration that I have outlined in previous posts. But, New Mexico offers a new one: when viewing the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) reports, there are twice, even three times as many voter registration applications said to be collected at motor vehicles departments than public assistance offices. Sometimes there is an even greater disparity between these totals reported to the EAC.
This trend is easily identified in the above visualization, which provides the total voter registration applications collected by New Mexico’s motor vehicle department and public assistance agency and reported by the state to the EAC. Although it seems like I just disproved my own claim above, that would mean you are operating under the assumption that said offices are both reporting to the EAC correctly and that the offices in any given state are following the NVRA 100 percent of the time. (Please also take note of the downward spiral of these voter registration totals as well.)
The visual below is where I begin to provide proof for my argument that motor vehicle departments are not the only accessible and effective option for providing the opportunity for voter registration.
When corrective and consistent action is taken on the part of the states agencies (election officials, motor vehicle department and public assistance agencies) to provide voter registration—according to the rules outlined under the NVRA—public assistance voter registration is close, if not the same, in terms of results.
My point is, no matter the agency providing voter registration services, if it is done correctly (See our best practices for Section 7 agencies) and consistently, this service will be put to good use and help to build a more representative electorate.
Source: “NVRA Studies,” Election Assistance Commission, accessed June 30, 2016.
