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26 years ago this week our nation passed the National Voter Registration Act (aka Motor Voter) with the express purpose of increasing “the number of eligible citizens who register to vote in elections for Federal office.” Its promise is still unfulfilled. thehill.com/opinion/civil-…
The fight for passage was long. It was stalled in Congress for over a decade, some years not even making it out of committee — the 1 bill that did pass both chambers was vetoed by Pres. Bush for being ‘needless, costly, and constitutionally questionable.” nytimes.com/1992/07/03/us/…
When the bill was introduced and passed the following year, then President Clinton signed it. Voting rights advocates predicted at the time that the number of registered voters would eventually rise to over 90% after passage and implementation. latimes.com/archives/la-xp…
And by 1997 our country was on its way towards that goal. Voter registrations had increased to their highest levels in history. Every state covered by the act was using a uniform voter registration form and all of them were allowing registration by mail. fec.gov/about/reports-…
But in the 2000s some states began violating the spirit and intention of the act — aggressively purging voter rolls, failing to register voters in communities of color, and ignoring accommodation requirements for the disabled. justice.gov/crt/cases-rais…
In just the last year we’ve seen violations in states including Georgia, Texas, Ohio & Florida. This week was the anniversary of a law that is, even now, being slowly chipped away. We cannot build a more perfect union unless we first build a democracy that includes every citizen.
