No Match, No Vote

The Dangers of Playing with Matches

Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) in 2002 to impose fair and more uniform standards for state election administration, including provisions to establish and maintain statewide voter registration databases.

However, some states have misinterpreted the intent of  database maintenance prodcedures outlined in HAVA and passed onerous “No Match, No Vote” laws. Under such statutes, if a state is unable to match the information on a voter’s registration application with information in an existing government database, the application is denied outright.

Research shows that matching voter data with other government databases is an unreliable, error-laden process, and that conditioning the right to vote on such a flawed system will inevitably disenfranchise eligible citizens.