Make Them Hear You! Voting

Make Them Hear You! is a weekly feature on KGNU, produced by Chris Mohr, letting listeners know how they can have their voices heard on issues up before Congress. You can hear it Wednesday mornings at 8.20am during the Morning Magazine.

Make Them Hear You! Voting KGNU News

Since voting is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy, we are devoting the entire month of June to shoring up our election security and fairness. We have two actions for you to consider this week.

Action One: A Pew Center report shows that a majority of both Republicans and Democrats support automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration, an election day holiday, and restoring the vote to returning citizens. An overwhelming share of Americans (87%) say they would favor automatically updating voter registrations when people move. And there is 85% support among the public for requiring electronic voting machines to print paper backup ballots.

And roughly two-thirds of Americans favor making Election Day a national holiday (65%), automatically registering all citizens to vote (65%) and allowing Election Day registration (64%).

62% oppose removing people from registration lists if they have not recently voted or confirmed their registration.

The Voter Empowerment Act of 2019 (S. 549/H.R. 1275) addresses many of these issues.

Action Two: Then there is the issue of voting by mail. The vote-by-mail system that states like Colorado, Oregon and Washington enjoy, gives voters time to make informed choices, reduces the expense of operating polling places, and increases security and voter participation. The Vote By Mail Act of 2019 (S. 26/H.R. 92), will expand vote by mail nationally.

As Oregon’s Republican Secretary of State said, “the Electronic Registration Information Center or “ERIC” is a non-profit membership organization of 25 states plus the District of Columbia with a mission to help state and local election officials improve the accuracy of their voter rolls, register more eligible citizens to vote, reduce costs and improve the voting process. The organization provides secure, sophisticated data matching services to states in order to improve their ability to identify inaccurate and out-of-date voter registration records, as well as unregistered residents who are likely eligible to vote. States can then contact voters, in compliance with federal and state regulations, to encourage individuals to register or update their existing registration. Efficient and effective data matching and cleaner voter rolls results in efficiencies including less returned mail, greater integrity in our elections, and fewer provisional ballots on election day.”

If you have thoughts on the Voter Empowerment Act of 2019 (S. 549/H.R. 1275) or The Vote By Mail Act of 2019 (S. 26/H.R. 92), you can contact your Senators and congressperson. This is Chris Mohr with Make Them Hear You.