Restore common sense to voter registration
Unlike most elections, there are only two ballot issues for Montana voters to decide this year.
One is largely a housekeeping item — a constitutional amendment to change the title of the state auditor to the commissioner of securities and insurance.
The other issue on the ballot is Legislative Referendum 126, which would require voters to register no later than the Friday before Election Day on Tuesday, thus ending Election Day registration.
This referendum placed on the ballot by the 2013 Legislature would do away with same-day voter registration that has been in place in Montana since 2006.
As we see it, LR-126 is a small change that is long overdue. For several years now the Daily Inter Lake has editorialized in favor of moving the registration deadline up a few days before Election Day.
In 2012, after a marathon of late election results prompted by a surge of last-minute voters who registered in Flathead County, we wrote:
“On Tuesday, we saw the result of this nonsense when hundreds of unregistered Flathead County voters woke up and decided they had procrastinated long enough, but yet they still wanted to vote. And the state of Montana pampered these somnolent citizens and took every effort to assure them that their convenience was more important than any other consideration.”
In early 2013, as the Legislature considered changing the registration deadline, our sentiments were similar:
“Election-day registration, from our perspective, adds a layer of unnecessary mayhem that can be avoided.”
Is it really too much to ask of voters that they decide by the Friday before Election Day that they want to vote?
We all, of course, want voters to be both informed and responsible. But deciding to register while polls are open seems to be neither an informed nor a responsible choice.
Opponents sometimes make the shrill claim that eliminating election-day registration is some kind of Republican scheme to keep people from voting, when the purpose is pretty obvious: improving election efficiency and public confidence in our electoral process.
No one’s right to vote is being threatened, but all rights come with responsibilities. The right to assemble does not include a right to be disorderly, and the right to vote does not include a right to be tardy. Deadlines for registration are not an unreasonable burden, any more than requiring people to vote by Election Day is unreasonable
The bottom line is that so many people piling in on Election Day causes unexpected logistical problems such as ballot shortages and delays in vote counting, and it raises speculation about the potential for voter fraud.
Election Day is the busiest day of the year for county election officials across the state, and it shouldn’t be made as complicated as possible.
Under LR-126, voters will have all year — with the exception of one business day before the election plus Election Day itself — to register or verify that they are registered.
That seems to be more than reasonable and therefore this referendum deserves public support.
A dissenting view
(EDITOR’S NOTE: With a subject as controversial as this one is, you should not be surprised to learn that there are widely differing viewpoints about the referendum within our editorial board. As a result, we thought this is one of those occasions where a healthy exchange of ideas demands that an opposing viewpoint also be aired. That is what now follows.)
The title of the Legislative Referendum 126 states that it is “An act protecting the integrity of Montana elections by ending late voter registration.” It goes on to suggest that passage will ensure “compliance with the National Voter Registration Act.”
The referendum raises a number of troubling issues. First, the stated purpose, to be in compliance with federal law, is a statement with little or no legal or factual support. If the referendum is needed to be in compliance with federal law, something we are unable to document, why haven’t the feds already challenged Montana’s voting rules?
The real goals of the referendum are apparently to prevent fraud and to alleviate the burden placed on poll and election workers who have to process late voting registrations and provisional ballots. During hearings before the Legislature, before this matter morphed into a referendum rather than just a regular Legislature-approved bill, there was no evidence presented that late registration increases the chance of fraud in the voting process. With no evidence either of an unreasonable burden placed on poll workers by “subjecting” them to late registrants, it is hard to be sympathetic to this argument.
Finally, and most importantly, the choice of how to vote on the referendum seems to us to be an easy one when you get out your judicial scale. Can the extra burden placed on poll workers be so compelling that it justifies denying the opportunity of our residents to exercise a right guaranteed to them by the Constitution? The dissenting members of the editorial board do not think so, and that is why we believe a “no” vote on Referendum 126 is the right vote.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of the Daily Inter Lake’s editorial board.