Around New England

New Hampshire House Passes Automatic Voter Registration

March 6, 2020

The New Hampshire House of Representatives has passed a measure that would automatically register people to vote when they renew their driver’s license unless they opt out/

The Democratic-controlled House passed the Secure Modern Accurate Registration Technology Act (SMART Act) (SB.7) on Thursday, March 5, by a vote of 202 to 146.

New Hampshire already has same-day voter registration.

Twenty-one states — including, now, Massachusetts — already have automatic voter registration, as does the District of Columbia, according to WMUR-TV Channel 9 in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Nationwide, automatic voter registration is unpopular. A 2016 Rasmussen poll found that 51 percent opposed it while 34 percent approved.

In 2015, National Review writer Daniel Foster offered a critique of the policy.

“The view of democracy associated with the desire for universal or near-universal participation (we already have near-universal franchise) is facile and vicious,” he wrote. “The need to register to vote is just about the most modest restriction on ballot access I can think of, which is why it works so well as a democratic filter:  It improves democratic hygiene because the people who can’t be bothered to register (as opposed to those who refuse to vote as a means of protest) are, except in unusual cases, civic idiots.”