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Drivers Wanted: Motor Voter and the Election of 1996

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Stephen Knack
Stephen Knack*
Affiliation:
University of Maryland
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Extract

The cartoon below, which I first saw printed on the cover of PS in March 1994, has unfortunately proved prophetic. Voter turnout has steadily declined from its 1960 peak of 63%, and the presidential election of 1996 was the first in the lifetime of most Americans in which a minority of the voting-age population cast ballots. Turnout dropped in every state between 1992 and 1996.

That only 49% of eligible voters went to the polls in 1996 was especially disappointing for advocates of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). The most dramatic liberalization of voter registration procedures in American history coincided with not only the lowest level of turnout since 1924, but with the largest single four-year decline since 1920. The theory that registration barriers are the chief cause of the gap between turnout rates of the U.S. and other developed democracies suffered a devastating blow, as turnout in North Dakota—where voters aren't even required to register—was a mere 56% of the voting-age population in 1996.

Moreover, the turnout decline was heavily concentrated among “electorally disadvantaged” groups, particularly the young and residentially mobile, the very groups that reform activists expected would be the primary beneficiaries of easier registration. In fact, registration of licensed drivers—the key “motor voter” provision of NVRA—was originally conceived in 1975 by Michigan's then-secretary of state, Richard Austin, as a means of facilitating registration for the young and recent movers.

Type
Research Article
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , June 1999 , pp. 237 - 243
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1999

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Footnotes

*

Valuable comments were provided by Michael Martinez, Jan Leighley, and other participants at the 1998 APSA meetings. Jim White provided assistance with Current Population Survey data. Jo-Anne Chasnow of Human SERVE was a key source of information on pre-NVRA motor voter implementation in the states. Any remaining errors are the sole responsibility of the author.

References

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