Leading civil rights groups say the Obama administration is breaking a 1993 law by not providing voter registration through the Obamacare health insurance marketplaces.
On the eve of the healthcare law’s third enrollment season, the American Civil Liberties Union and nearly two dozen other groups are asking the administration to include a feature on healthcare.gov that allows Americans shopping to health plans to register to vote.
“We are concerned about the failure of the health benefit exchanges created under the Affordable Care Act to comply with existing federal law requiring public assistance agencies to provide opportunities for potential voters to register,” the groups said in a statement issued Friday.
The 1993 National Voter Registration Act requires state governments to offer voter registration to any person who applies for a driver’s license or public assistance. The ACLU and other groups say the law applies to the federal marketplace set up under the healthcare law providing subsidized plans to low-income Americans.
In response, Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Aaron Albright said the administration “strongly supports the goals of the NVRA and is committed to enforcing its requirements, as applicable.” Albright noted that consumers viewing their eligiblity are provided with a link to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s website.
But while the groups applauded President Obama for his trademark healthcare law, they said it shouldn’t “come at the cost” of making progress on the voter registration act, which was initially passed to address voting discrimination against racial minorities.
“More than 1 million Americans have already lost the opportunity to register to vote because of this failure,” the groups said. “With another open enrollment period beginning Nov. 1, hundreds of thousands more will be denied this federally guaranteed opportunity if the administration does not take immediate and effective action.”
The ACLU was joined by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the AFL-CIO labor federation, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and others.
