The United States should consider automatically registering voters, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday at an event at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston.
Bloomberg News reports that Holder called the current voter registration system “antiquated,” and said, “It is important for national leaders, academic experts, and members of the public to engage in a frank, thorough and inclusive discussion about how our election systems can be made stronger and more accessible.”
Holder’s statements ignore the foundation of effective democracy: active and thoughtful citizen engagement.
If everyone is automatically registered to vote, while more voters may turnout, many of them are likely to be uninformed voters. Uninformed Americans are not going to decide to become high information voters simply because the small hurdle of having to register to vote has been removed. All voting requires in our country is for citizens to pre-register and then show up at the polls on Election Day/during election week or fill out an absentee ballot. The process gives added weight to voting because it is consciously chosen.
If voters weren’t willing to put forth the effort to register to vote in the first place, they are not likely to put forth the effort to learn about the issues. And given the number of average Americans who actually know little to nothing about the issues facing our nation and what the two major political parties’ stances are on those issues, the idea of allowing anyone and everyone the opportunity to wake up on Election Day and decide to vote doesn’t seem like a well-thought out plan to strengthen our democracy (which is presumably the basis for Holder’s proposal).
This added effort also holds symbolic significance. The right to vote for a democratically elected government was earned by the blood of patriots. It therefore holds a special status for those American citizens who chose to legally exercise this constitutional right. Voting is a reaffirmation of this in the same way students recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of class or when a hand is held on the heart during the Star Spangled Banner.
Holder clearly fails to recognize how special the right to vote is, as he also attacked Voter ID laws during his talk as well, which are an added protection to make sure that only people who have the right to vote are voting in American elections.
The Attorney General’s proposal demonstrates a disregard for the importance of participation and ritual, two traditions that are necessary for a democracy to function. Holder can’t possibly want to allow a pack of dummies or non-citizens to have a disproportionate amount of say in who gets to govern our country.
Or maybe that is exactly what he is counting on.
