Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro wants to get out the vote in his reliably purple swing state, and he’s making a change in the law that is straight out of the Silicon Valley playbook.
As everyone with a digital device knows, the default mode in the technology world is “opt-in” — that is, users are almost universally opted-in to data collection and other services that an application has to offer. (Lawsuits around privacy issues are changing this, especially for minors, but tech products are still designed around maximizing the opt-in default.)
Shapiro believes that one way to enhance democracy is to follow Silicon Valley’s lead and remove impediments for voters: why should a voter have to register to vote (manually opt-in) when one can be automatically opted-in through various channels like the Department of Motor Vehicles? (In other words, your voter registration box starts out clicked.)
If a voter is opted-in by default, as Shapiro’s new “automatic voter registration” will begin doing this week, then the process of voting is easier. Shouldn’t everyone be in favor of that?
The answer to that question, of course, is no. Some politicians do better when the voter rolls are restricted to people who fit a certain demographic — and it is big business to create barriers for voters who will likely vote for the other side. To wit, the Pennsylvania GOP would be more successful in statewide elections if highly Democratic Philadelphia didn’t have as many registered voters, just as the Democrats would have an easier time winning Pennsylvania if heavily Republican rural Westmoreland County didn’t register so many of its eligible voters.
[NOTE: 62 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties have more registered voters in 2022 than in 1998.]
The Washington Post reports that Pennsylvania “has calculated that 1.6 million people who are currently eligible to vote in Pennsylvania are not registered” and quotes Shapiro saying: “I see voter participation as key to strengthening democracy.”
Citing the Pennsylvania GOP’s promotion of Donald Trump-fueled election deniers and Republican attempts to undermine confidence in the voting system, the Post‘s Greg Sargent asserts that “if automatic voter registration is well received in Pennsylvania, it could act as an antidote to that MAGA mania.”
Sargent writes: “Republicans at the state level have been gerrymandering, restricting ballot access and manipulating the rules of political competition for decades. But Trump has exacerbated these tendencies…”
NOTE: Voter suppression has been a weapon in the arsenal of political manipulators since the advent of democracy. In America, it was legal at first: only white men could vote at the dawn of the nation, suffrage later being won by women and minorities. Today there are no legal prohibitions preventing adult citizens from voting (excepting some felony offenders), but there is — as a backroom political fixer might say — more than one way to skin a cat, and voter suppression remains a potent weapon, especially in poorer urban areas.
Automatic voter registration is currently implemented in nearly half of states.
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