Voter registration

Via Making Light: US voter registration deadlines and links. Some of the deadlines are coming up soon, folks.

Since we just moved, we have to re-register (per Massachusetts law and the discussion that happened earlier on this LJ, we actually have a six-month grace period in which we can vote at the old place, which I did in the primary election; but I figured I should get into the habit of voting in my current precinct).

The "motor voter" law lets you register when you renew your driver's license, but contrary to what that might lead one to believe, Web-submitted changes of address with the Registry of Motor Vehicles do not affect your voter registration; and dealing with the RMV in person is like getting teeth pulled. So the easiest way for me to register was actually to figure out where City Hall was and go, not to the disgruntled-citizen-filled RMV office in the basement, but to the city clerk's office on the ground floor, where there's no waiting at all.

I guess the form available via the link here would have allowed me to register by mail—the state sent us a pamphlet with a registration form, but there are two voters here and there was just the one form.

Yacht Rock!

Via The Editors: The history of Yacht Rock.

manfire will be particularly interested in Episode 5. But I particularly liked the shout-out in Episode 4 to that SCTV episode where they mocked Michael McDonald over and over.

Voter registration, cont'd.

Madame Verdi gives more details on voter registration, including states where there are different deadlines for mail and in-person registration. Aside from the individual states' mail registration forms, almost all states also accept the form you can get from GoVote.org.

In six states, you will be able to register on election day. (Montana will be doing this for the first time this year. Also, North Dakota has no voter registration at all.) States with election-day registration have historically had higher turnout than other states, and contrary to widespread fears, there is no evidence that it facilitates voter fraud. The liberal think tank Demos argues that, properly implemented, it can actually reduce fraud.

Demos's documents on voter registration and related issues are generally interesting. Discussions of funny business during the electoral process usually focus on the mechanics of voting and vote-counting: riggable machines, hanging chads, recounts, etc. That stuff is important. I suspect, though, that in numerical influence it's actually far more important to make sure that eligible voters can get registered properly without undue difficulty (if we even need to require people to do something to register) and are not turned away at the polls. In 2000 in Florida, the wonky convicted-felon list that the state got from the private firm ChoicePoint probably had a bigger effect on the outcome than the recount that was the subject of Bush v. Gore ever could.