Sen. Raskin's Youth Voter Registration Bill Passes Maryland Senate

On February 25, I testified in favor of Senator Jamie Raskin's Youth Voter Registration Bill, SB292. The bill would facilitate youth voter registration by establishing age 16 as a uniform age for voter registration, with the registration becoming active when voters become eligible. This would allow institutions and activists to focus more on registering young people to vote in the schools (and elsewhere). It would also allow for some of that sense of community and commonality to build as a class of students moves through the voter registration system together.

I am pleased to announce that Common Cause Maryland reported today that the Maryland State Senate approved SB 292 today, joining the House of Delegates in facilitating youth voter registration efforts in the state.

According to Common Cause's press release:

"The Maryland State Senate passed legislation today to create a uniform age to pre-register to vote (HB 217), a move expected to create thousands of new voters and encourage participation among young people. It also changes the deadline to change party affiliation (currently 12 weeks before the election) to the deadline to register to vote (3 weeks before).

The House of Delegates previously passed HB 217 by a vote of 97-43. The cross-filed Senate Bill 292 also passed today.

Senator Jamie Raskin (Sponsor): "This is a big victory for democracy. I've been fighting for a standard voter registration age since I was elected so that 16 or 17 year olds all over the state will know that they should register to vote before they leave school. With this legislation, we can now register young people before they graduate and are off into the work force or to college or the military. All the studies show that, when people register, they vote. Our goal should be 100% registration and 100% participation. Democracy works best when everybody participates."

I look forward to seeing Governor O'Malley sign this bill into law. You can read my full testimony below:

Testimony of Hans Riemer
Former National Youth Vote Director, Obama for America
Former Washington Director, Rock the Vote

Maryland Senate Education, Health and Environment Committee
Senate Bill 292: Elections – Voter Registration and Voting – Age
February 25, 2010

Madam Chair, members of the Senate Education, Health and Environment Committee.

Thank you for the opportunity to share my views today about the proposal to let young people register to vote at age 16.

My perspective on this issue is shaped by my experience working to promote youth voter participation as National Youth Vote Director on the Obama presidential campaign, and as the political director of Rock the Vote.

I would bet that every member of the Committee has had to make a decision at some point about whether to prioritize resources to reaching out to young voters. For most candidates, the decision is easy--they reach out to other demographics instead. They ask young people to volunteer on their campaigns, but they do not take them seriously as voters. It is unfortunate that this is how our process works, and it can change.

Due to the way voter registration laws work, it is a challenge indeed to reach out to high school age voters. In this year's 2010 gubenatorial, the voter registration deadline for the September primary is Tuesday, August 24 (thanks to our outlandish 21 day advance deadline). That gives only days at the start of the school year to register new voters before the cut off. As a result, only a small fraction of any given high school senior class is eligible to vote in a typical November election, let alone a September primary. Campaigns look elsewhere for votes.

It is very hard to build excitement about voting among high school students when we make it so tough for them to get involved.

By contrast, consider what happened in the 2008 presidential election. Rules in the Iowa Caucus, which were replicated here in Maryland, allowed students to vote in the primary as long as they were going to be age 18 by the general election. Thanks to this policy, pretty much the entire class of 2008 in Iowa was eligible for the caucus, which in turn created a great sense of excitement about the election. Young people engaged as a community and they turned out for the caucus in landslide numbers. They changed the world!

Establishing age 16 as a uniform age for voter registration would allow institutions and activists to focus more on registering young people to vote in the schools (and elsewhere). It would allow for some of that sense of community and commonality to build as a class of students moves through the voter registration system together.

Now, you may be thinking, does it matter if young people register to vote? Will they vote even if they are registered? The answer to this is definitively, "Yes." In fact, according to Census data, about eighty percent of all 18-29 year olds who are registered to vote, turn out to vote.

So we don't have a problem getting young people to vote once they are registered. We have a problem with young people registering. And that is our fault--our fault--not theirs. The flaw is with our government's policies, not this generation's character.

Our registration system works more like a program to prevent people from voting than to help them vote. The kind of system we should have is one where eligible citizens are always registered to vote, but regularly confirm their voter information when they interact with the state government, which keeps their information updated automatically through existing information in state government databases. Then, the relatively small percentage that do not have a chance to confirm their information in advance may do it on Election Day at the polls. If this body had the opportunity to design a system from scratch, I believe it would want one that would allow for maximum participation in the political process while also guarding against fraud. The framework I am proposing does just that, and over time it would almost certainly be more cost effective than what we are doing now.

In the mean time, there are several steps in the right direction that I hope you will support---expanding vote by mail, election day registration, registration for 16 year olds.

Let's make Maryland a national leader in citizen participation in the political process. I urge you to support this important legislation.

Thank you.
Hans Riemer