Melanie Brusseler

Ben Henderson

CAS 138 H

April 15, 2014

Modernizing Pennsylvania’s Voter Registration Process to Fuel Political

Participation in Young Voters.

A defining factor that separates a democratic government from all other forms is

the right of its citizens to vote for their representation in free and fair elections. Within

such governments voting serves as the principle way in which its citizens may directly

articulate their interests and drive policy.1 Despite the fact that the United States is the

oldest living democracy, whose history is marked by great struggles by groups to gain

enfranchisement, voter participation is on the decline. Of the 221,925,820 Americans

who compromised the voting eligible population, only 58 percent actually voted in the

2012 presidential election.2 Within the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania a similar

disparity occurred, as a little more than 59 percent of its voting eligible population voted

in the same election.3 While it is not realistic to expect all those eligible to vote in every

election to actually do so—as some may willingly choose to abstain, or be unable to

make it to the polls—lackluster political participation points to a larger issue that must be

addressed in Pennsylvania—an outdated voter registration process that does not invite

citizens, specifically young voters, to engage politically.

1 "Interest Articulation," Comparative Politics Today: A World View, ed. G.Bingham Powell, Jr. Russel J. Dalton, Kaare Strom (Boston: Longman, 2012), 61-78.

2 McDonald, Michael. George Mason University, "2012 General Election Turnout Rates." Last modified 07 22, 2013. Accessed April 13, 2014. http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2012G.html.

3 McDonald

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In the 2012 Presidential election only 85.5% of those citizens eligible in the

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania were registered to vote, which is down from 90.39 % in

2008. The marked decrease in voter registration can be linked to dwindling registration

among Pennsylvania’s youngest voters. Though those aged 18-29 are expected to account

for 1/3 of the voting eligible population nationwide by 2015 as per the U.S Census

Bureau,4 18-34 year olds account for only 25% of Pennsylvania’s registered voters.5 The

youth’s reluctance to vote is hardly a new trend, as the number of 18-29 year olds who

vote gradually decreased from 53 percent in 1972 to a historic low of 36 percent in 2000,6

yet political scientists have noted that the millennial generation (those born after 1980) in

particular tends to be less party focused and more passionate about issues based politics,

and moreover that they are reluctant to vote in elections that will in many ways dictate

the policy outcomes revolving around many of those issues, and thus “by passing up

opportunities to vote, young adults are ceding important decisions to those who have

different values and interests.”7 As the population of Pennsylvania ages, with the

population of those over 65 “expected to increase from 15% of the total population in

2010 to 19% in 2020, and 23% in 2030,”8 policy with the power to create long lasting

4 Young Voter Strategies: The George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management , "Polling Young Voters." Last modified 12 2006. Accessed April 13, 2014.

http://www.rockthevote.com/assets/publications/research/polling-young-voters-volume-ii.pdf.

5 Pennsylvania Department of State, "Voter Registration Statistics." Last modified 2 20, 2013. Accessed April 13, 2014. http://www.dos.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/voter_registration_statistics/12725.

6 Russell, Cheryl. "The Surprising Trends That Suggest Young People Won't Vote in 2012." New Republic. http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/100774/young-voters-election-2012 (accessed April 14, 2014).

7 Wattenburg, Martin. Is Voting For Young People. White Plains: Pearson Longman, 2008. Reprint in Miki Caul Kittilson (2009). Review of Martin P. Wattenberg 'Is Voting for Young People?' The Journal of Politics, 71, pp 753-754. doi:10.1017/S0022381609090598.

8 Pennsylvania State Data Center. "Population Trends and Hilights." Pennsylvania Department of Aging.

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costs and benefits in Pennsylvania such as entitlement reform and environmental

protection stands to be dictated by people who are not expected to live to feel either. In

order for democracy to work properly in Pennsylvania the interests of its citizens must be

articulated through voting more proportionately across age demographics so that future

policy outcomes may better reflect the values of the population as a whole.

Key to increasing voter turnout in Pennsylvania, specifically among young voters,

is modernizing the voter registration process by allowing those eligible to register online.

Currently new Pennsylvania residents, Pennsylvanians who have moved within the state

and first time voters can only register or update their registration electronically at

government agencies such as the DMV or by mailing in a paper form to their county

voter registration office.9 Since 1995 Pennsylvania’s Department of Transportation

(PennDot) has allowed people to register to vote at self service computer terminals as

they change their address or apply for a driver’s license, which a study by the Brennan

Center for Justice at New York University’s Law School found led to an increase in

registrations filed and how quickly and accurately they were processed compared to

paper applications.10 However, electronic registration at PennDot is not enough to spur

registration from those who would not otherwise fill out the paper form. The

Pennsylvania state legislature along with the governor needs to pass legislation to expand

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=616669&mode=2 (accessed April 14, 2014).

9 Pennsylvania Department of State. "How To Register." VotesPA. http://www.votespa.com/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=1174117&parentname=ObjMgr&parentid=1&mode=2 (accessed April 14, 2014).

10 Christopher Ponoroff and, Weiser, Wendy. "voter registration in a digital age: pennsylvania." Voter Registration in a Digital Age. http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/Democracy/Paperless%20Report%20Appendix_Final%20(Pennsylvania).pdf (accessed April 14, 2014).

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the options for registering to vote to include registering online by apportioning and

allocating funds to the Pennsylvania Department of Voter Registration so that it may set

up and maintain a secure website where Pennsylvanians can register to vote. Such a

website would be an extension of the digitized online database of Pennsylvania’s voters,

where citizens and election officials may currently check registration information based

on their county and could be created after the midterm state legislative and gubernatorial

election to keep electioneering from being an issue. Though promoting voter registration

would not on its own address the problem of growing indifference to the political process

in Pennsylvania’s voting eligible population and within its millennial voters, expanding

the ways in which Pennsylvanians can register to vote will remove other barriers to

voting that work to keep people from the polls, and will allow election results to more

accurately reflect the interests of Pennsylvanians.

As of the same 2010 study by the Brennan Center, seven states in the U.S made

secure online voter registration available, which has increased registration rates within all

of them, especially for millennial voters along with creating the additional benefits of

increasing the accuracy of registration data, and driving down costs for the state.11 In

Arizona alone the registration rates “among 18-24 year old citizens rose from 28 to 53

percent,”12 after it introduced online registration. Moreover the marked spike in youth

registration relates directly to the ubiquitous influence of digital technology and social

media that is not comparable with a purely paper application driven system Though

California did not rely on any advertising campaigns to publicize the unveiling of its

online voter registration system, researchers at UC Berkeley point to online social media

11 Ponoroff and Weiser12 Ponoroff and Weiser

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campaigns and the digital word of mouth that promoted voter registration through these

sites as a reason why California registered 839,297 new voters online between September

19 2012 and October 21 2012 alone.13 The creation of an online registration system in the

state, when coupled with social media would create an avenue for political participation

that is more compatible with the digital lifestyle of not just millenials but for other age

groups and those of across the socio-economic spectrum than the current paper driven

system. 14 When beginning an application is as simple as Googling it, or clicking a link

that appears in a Twitter feed, participation in Pennsylvania’s political process becomes

significantly easier. 15

Two major concerns within Pennsylvania politics today are cutting government

spending, and eradicating voter fraud. To these two effects online voter registration

would be a more efficient option as it would save the state money, and more accurately

keep track of voter registration updates. The initial costs of hiring personnel to build and

maintain the website would be offset by the decrease in cost for such expenditures as

printing applications and the salaries and benefits of personnel to process paper

applications. Where it cost Arizona less than $130,000 to implement online registration,

processing applications costs on average 84 cents per application for paper compared to

33 cents per application for online registration.16 And while the perceived threat of voter

fraud remains a contentious issue after the striking down of Pennsylvania’s voter id law

this past year by a Commonwealth Court Judge, the court’s ruling shows that the state

13 Maclay, Kathleen. "California’s online registration drive draws broader voter base." UC Berkeley News Center. http://newscenter.berkeley.edu/2013/03/26/californias-online-registration-drive-draws-broader-voter-base/ (accessed April 14, 2014).

14 Maclay, Kathleen15 Maclay, Kathleen16 Maclay, Kathleen

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could not point to a single instance of intentional voter fraud in which an individual who

was not eligible voted in person.17 Rather instances of voter fraud in Pennsylvania occur

unintentionally when voter registration information is not correctly updated, or not

updated at all. Online voter registration has been shown to decrease instances of

unintentional voter fraud and close opportunities for individuals to commit intentional

voter fraud in those states that have adopted it, for “electronic voter registrations are as

much as five times less error-prone than their paper-based counterparts,”18 and

registrations are more accurately and efficiently updated compared to paper forms.

Though the recent failings of Healthcare.gov may invite criticisms against any

large-scale government websites such as an online voter registration site, such hesitations

are unwarranted as Pennsylvania already has a large body of databases that the site could

be built off of. While Healthcare.gov is a website that had to be constructed from scratch,

and received near constant high levels of traffic from the time of its unveiling as

Americans scrambled to sign up through open enrollment before the deadline,19 secure

online voter registration can be built piggybacking off of the databases already in

existence in Pennsylvania, including the database of voter registration information from

all of Pennsylvania’s counties, and furthermore other states who already have online

registration systems in place have not experienced any of the problems that plagued

Healthcare.gov during the rollout of the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act in

2013. There will be those of course who feel unsafe admitting to personal information

17 Lyman, Rick. "Pennsylvania Voter ID Law Struck Down as Judge Cites Burden on Citizens." The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/us/politics/pennsylvania-voter-id-law-struck-down.html?_r=0 (accessed April 14, 2014).

18 Ponoroff and Weiser19 Cohen, Tom. "Rough Obamacare rollout: 4 reasons why." CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/22/politics/obamacare-website-four-reasons/ (accessed April 14, 2014).

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online, but they may be assured to know that most of the information required of citizens

by the voter registration form is a matter of public record, and is no less safe than online

banking for as a Pew State and Consumer Initiative study on states with online

registration options concludes “all states have security procedures and protocols in place,

including data encryption and tracking, while limiting those who have access to their

system internally. No state has reported a security breach, including Arizona, where

voters have been registering online for more than a decade.”20 Therefore online

registration would offer a secure and efficient way for the state to oversee voter

registration in Pennsylvania.

Modernizing Pennsylvania’s voter registration system also stands to bring

benefits to both the Republican and Democratic parties within the state. Republicans in

the Pennsylvania Sate Legislature may worry that such an increase in millennial voter

registration and turnout could cost them the majority control they exert in both the State

House of Representatives and the State Senate because of the decade spanning trend of

young voters to vote for Democrats, which has increased in recent years.21 However

polling has indicated that half of all millenials self-identify as Independent politically and

prefer to organize around specific issues rather than the two major parties. This trend may

well serve both parties as young voters vote based on a prioritization of these issues and

candidates proposed policies regarding them, instead of blind party loyalty. Moreover the

18-29 year old voting bloc is not the only one that stands to increase in size through

20 The Pew Charitable Trusts: State and Consumer Initiatives. "Understanding Online Voter Registration." The Pew Charitable Trusts. http://www.pewstates.org/research/analysis/understanding-online-voter-registration-85899531449 (accessed April 14, 2014).

21 Pew Research Center. "Young Voters in the 2008 Election." Pew Research Center. http://www.pewresearch.org/2008/11/13/young-voters-in-the-2008-election/ (accessed April 14, 2014).

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online voter registration, with a “significant proportion of eligible voters over age 35,

particularly men,” 22 which is the base of the Republican Party, registering to vote online

in California. If Pennsylvania were to broaden the voter registration process to include

online applications the population of Independent voters would be poised to rise, giving

Republicans the ability to take votes from their Republican challengers. Democrats on the

other hand will benefit from the spike in registration by low-income and minority groups

as was witnessed in both California and Arizona, who typically tend to vote for liberal

candidates.23 Were Pennsylvania to modernize voter registration by adding online

applications to the current paper system the yearned for votes of new demographics may

be within reach for both parties.

The Department of Voter Registration has not changed its policies since 1995,

and so while the system remains static, shifting sociopolitical trends within the past two

decades have evolved around it. As voter turnout continues to diminish with each election

cycle and new generations of voters turn away from traditional political processes and

move towards digital organization the policy outputs of the Pennsylvania state

government will be disproportionately swayed by the influence views of older voters.

Allowing for voters to register through online as well as by paper would not only increase

millennial registration and subsequent voter turnout, but also would cut costs for the state

and increase the accuracy of voter information. If Pennsylvania does not take steps to

modernize its system of processing voter registration the

22 Maclay, Kathleen23 Maclay Kathleen

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