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Barriers To Voter Registration
by Doug Israel
Oct 2004
Juliana Zuccaro had not realized when she started registering students to vote
that she would be accused of committing a felony. "We were registering students
when we were interviewed by Fox News, Zuccaro of the University of Arizona,
told Katha Pollitt of The Nation; the Fox reporter claimed that we were committing
'unintentional
felony' by registering out-of-state
students.
There is a contentious debate over the fairness of having students vote using their school address instead of their parents' address; that there is any debate at all is both outrageous and odd, since the United States Supreme Court already ruled, back in 1979, that students can do so. Nevertheless, the attempts to intimidate them from doing this remain numerous. Students at Prairie View A&M, a historically black college located in Prairie View, Texas, in the heart of a majority white county, have also reportedly been informed that they will be committing a felony -- voter fraud -- if they register and vote at their university.
The outright discrimination against students may be the most blatant barrier to registering eligible voters, but it is certainly not the only one.
It is fashionable to lament the lack of citizen participation, especially among the young, and to assume that the fault lies in the would-be voters that there are psychological or cultural reasons for not participating in elections. (See "Fighting the Fear of Voting" in the Community Gazette for Jackson Heights.) While culture or psychology do sometimes play a part, there are also concrete, external barriers that prevent many from registering to vote who might otherwise barriers that can, and should, be taken down:
PREMATURE DEADLINES
Friday, October 8th is the last day that citizens in New York City can register to vote and still be able to choose a president on November 2nd. New York City requires 25 days advance registration (the New York State Constitution only requires 10 days advance registration); most states require 30. Why so far in advance?
That is not the way it has to be, according to New York State Assemblymember Scott Stringer. The effect of this rule is to lock out from the process new voters who had recently moved or just turned 18, but it also excludes people who did not become interested in the contest until things started heating up in the last few weeks, Stringer wrote in an article explaining why he has proposed legislation that would allow for Election Day Registration.
Currently six states permit people to register on the same day that they vote. Those states have seen a surge of up to six percent in new voters. If New York were to implement it, Stringer believes, there could be a million new voters.
Supporters of advance registration say it prevents voter fraud and vote buying, and that eliminating it would increase the administrative and financial burdens on the Board of Elections. But Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Wyoming have yet to experience the presumed breakdown in the integrity of their electoral system.
Some advocate a hybrid system, where voters can vote on election day during the primaries, which have much lower turnout and are considerably less hectic for poll workers, but not during the general election. Proposals for a two week waiting period have been advanced as has a proposal to bring New York City inline with the State Constitution requirement of 10 days.
THE LANGUAGE BARRIER
Well over 150 different languages are spoken in New York City. Yet, the Board of Election

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