Citing Ongoing Voting Irregularities, FairVote Demands National Voter Registration Procedure

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

  Wednesday, October 27, 2004                       Contact:                    Andrew Kirshenbaum
                                                                                                         Right To Vote Program 
                                                                                                         (301) 270-4616
                                                                                                         [email protected] 

  TAKOMA PARK, MD - In response to the steady stream of reports highlighting voter registration irregularities, FairVote-The Center For Voting and Democracy calls for the establishment of a national voter registration procedure.  Under the current system, states design their own voter registration forms and procedures.  This creates a fifty-state patchwork that causes widespread confusion, especially for new voters unfamiliar with state policies. 

Over the last few weeks, Democrats and Republicans have each accused one another of knowingly supporting voter registration fraud.  Assuming even some of these accusations are true, come November 2nd, many Americans believing themselves to be properly registered will discover that they are in fact not registered and unable to vote, even by casting a provisional ballot.

Rob Richie, Executive Director of FairVote said, ���Throughout this election season, we���ve season extensive media coverage of partisan dirty tricks, but no discussion of a solution for the future.  Everyone���s focused on November 2^nd, but we���re beginning to look at November 3^rd.���

Recognizing that the Federal Government has the capability of developing a national registration form, the Center For Voting and Democracy calls on Congress to adopt a national policy to automatically register U.S. citizens once they are of voting age.  This automatic registration system is already in place in numerous nations around the world, and can be tied to assignment of social security numbers or other such Federal identifiers.

Richie further explained, ���while the act of voting should be up to the individual citizen, the registration of citizens and the creation of clean and complete voter rolls should be the responsibility of the government.���

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