Is It Illegal To Not Be Registered To Vote

Why Are Millions of Citizens Non Registered to Vote?

A survey of the civically unengaged finds they lack involvement, but outreach opportunities be

Issue Brief June 21, 2017 Read fourth dimension:

Why Are Millions of Citizens Not Registered to Vote?

Voter registration

Overview

In every state and the District of Columbia—except North Dakota—individuals who plan to vote in a federal election must first register to vote. Still, a sizable share of eligible citizens do not register. Official statistics vary, just a bourgeois estimate, calculated using data from the U.South. Demography Bureau'southward most recent Voting and Registration Supplement, indicates that 21.four per centum were not registered to vote in 2014.¹

Registration's importance to the voting procedure and the large number of individuals who remain unregistered have spurred several major reforms intended to increment voter registration. Nigh notably, the federal authorities'southward National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) requires that states let eligible citizens to register to vote when completing other transactions at country motor vehicle and social services agencies, a provision commonly known equally Motor Voter.ⁱⁱ Since enactment of the law, some states accept expanded on this requirement past automating the Motor Voter process. Colorado upgraded its Motor Voter process in 2017, and Oregon became the starting time state to implement automatic voter registration in 2016, with at least six more planning to implement similar policies in the hereafter.^three Other states offer Same Solar day Registration, which allows individuals to register and vote on Election Mean solar day, often correct at their polling places.^four

Despite these efforts, little is known almost eligible simply unregistered U.Southward. citizens' exposure to opportunities to register, reasons for choosing not to, or attitudes toward the electoral system and civic appointment, or how many of them are interested in registering in the futurity. To begin to fill this gap, The Pew Charitable Trusts commissioned a nationally representative survey conducted in March and April 2016 that included a large population of unregistered individuals. This chartbook presents findings from the survey well-nigh the attitudes and experiences of those who said they were not registered to vote in the months preceding the 2016 presidential election, including:

Less than xx percent of eligible citizens have been offered the chance to register at a motor vehicle or other government agency.
The unregistered were more than likely to say they do not vote considering they dislike politics or believe voting will not make a departure, while people who are registered but vote infrequently say they do not vote more often considering they are not informed enough about the candidates or issues.
At least 13 percent of the unregistered, mostly those who are younger and more civically engaged, say they could be motivated to register in the future.

Voting registration

Considering the American voting system requires individuals to register before they can vote, many political campaigns, nonprofits, religious organizations, and other groups hold voter registration drives. Despite these well-publicized efforts, more than 60 percent of adult citizens have never been asked to register to vote, and the charge per unit was almost identical among individuals who are and are non registered.⁵ Amid respondents who had been invited to register, the nearly likely context was by an official at a motor vehicle agency, social service agency, or other government role. Notwithstanding, less than twenty percentage of all those surveyed reported such an occurrence, which indicates that the NVRA has non been successful at reaching a big percentage of the population.

Voting registration

Twoscore-four percent of eligible unregistered individuals say they practice non want to vote. Another 27 pct say they intend to annals but haven't done so yet, and 25 percentage say they are unregistered because they take not been inspired past a candidate or issue. Eleven pct do not want to register due to privacy or security reasons. The survey was conducted earlier revelations in fall 2016 that hackers had targeted information from country voter registration systems, so the results do not reflect the public business organisation virtually the security of voter information that adult late in the campaign.⁶

Voting registration

The unregistered are more than likely to bespeak a broad distaste for the electoral organization than registered individuals, who tend to give ballot-specific motives for nonvoting, such as disliking the candidates or not knowing enough about the issues. Forty percent of the unregistered say their aversion to politics is a major reason they don't want to vote, and 35 percent say voting has little to do with the way real decisions are made, compared with xx and nineteen pct of registered but infrequent voters, respectively.

Previous enquiry has found that many unregistered students feel they should not vote because they are insecure about their political knowledge.^seven However, this survey found that but 17 pct of the unregistered population chose not to vote because they are likewise uninformed almost the candidates or issues to make adept decisions, compared with more twice that amount—39 percent—of registered infrequent voters.

Voting registration

Some people vote in many types of races, while others turn out but for sure elections or are registered but never vote. For example, in 2016, approximately sixty percentage of eligible citizens voted in the presidential election, but in the 2014 congressional races, turnout was less than xl pct.^eight To better empathise how the unregistered population compares with these different groups of voters, the survey asked respondents to call back most the various types of elections and evaluate how frequently they have voted since they were first eligible.⁹ Based on measures of people'south involvement in government, electric current events, and political bug, unregistered individuals differ very little from those who are registered simply rarely or never cast a ballot, while frequent voters are more than than iii times equally probable as the unregistered to express interest in government.

Voting registration

Despite not participating in elections, 43 percent of the unregistered and 59 per centum of rare or nonvoters say they care a good bargain who wins the presidential ballot. These groups expressed far less interest in the consequence of congressional races and presidential primaries, while frequent voters care almost the winner of all three types of elections at very high rates. Although some of the unregistered may care who governs, many of these respondents still were not interested in participating in choosing the president: Only 38 percent said they intended to register merely had not washed so at the time of the survey, and 32 percent said they did non want to vote, probably because of their full general belief that voting is disconnected from the manner real decisions are fabricated and their feeling that one vote would not affect the issue of the election. (See Figure 3.)

Voting registration

Voters diverge significantly from the unregistered in terms of their views about the behaviors that are necessary for a person to be considered a practiced citizen. Jury service was the most commonly selected behavior for good citizens across groups at 69 percent of all respondents. Nonetheless, across groups, the priority on jury duty differed widely: Just 46 pct of the unregistered identified this every bit an essential responsibility of good citizenship, compared with 87 percent of frequent voters. Voters and the unregistered tended to exist more like-minded about behaviors such as volunteering fourth dimension to help others. Sixty-iv per centum of frequent voters and 48 percent of the unregistered said volunteering is something that a person should do to exist a good citizen. Voting in elections and paying attention to politics were the ii behaviors nigh which voters and the unregistered population differed nigh. Frequent voters were more three times as probable as the unregistered to say voting is something that good citizens should do.

Voting registration

An individual'south belief that he or she is qualified to empathise and participate in politics is considered a primal metric for inferring engagement in the political system.¹⁰ All groups, except the near frequent voters, reported that the rules of government are difficult to understand at roughly similar— and high—rates. But when asked if voting could influence the mode the government is run, the unregistered and rare or nonvoters both tended to say it does not, which very clearly diverged from more frequent voters, who largely said voting does affect governance.

Voting registration

Well-nigh people, including more lxxx pct of the unregistered population, said they could take at least a small positive impact on their communities. Occasional, semifrequent, and frequent voters were all about likely to say they could have a moderate outcome, while rare and nonvoters were equally likely to choose moderate or pocket-size. The largest share of unregistered respondents said they could have just a small impact.

Voting registration

Given that nonvoters and the unregistered have limited confidence in their ability to bear on their communities, the fact that they are less likely to engage in civic and volunteer activities than groups who vote more than ofttimes is non surprising. Across dissimilar types of activities, the unregistered and nonvoters participate more oftentimes in those that are not political in nature. Only 1 percentage of the unregistered have donated money to a political candidate or organization, and just 5 percent take attended a customs coming together. All the same, fifteen percent take done unpaid volunteer piece of work. The civic behaviors of the unregistered population did not differ significantly from those of respondents who rarely or never vote and, in some cases, occasional voters were virtually equally disengaged.

Voting registration

Among the unregistered population, responses differed about maybe registering to vote in the future. Overall, 43 percent of the unregistered said aught would motivate them to register, 13 pct said something might, and 44 per centum were undecided. Those who were open to registration tended to be younger: Forty-half dozen percent of those who said they would register were betwixt 18 and 29 years onetime, compared with 21 percent ages 45 to 59 and just eleven percentage sixty or older.

Voting registration

Amid the unregistered, those who said they would register reported patterns of civic engagement that closely resembled those observed for occasional or semifrequent voters. 14 percent of unregistered individuals who said they would register and semifrequent voters had worked informally to solve a problem in their customs, and 21 and 27 per centum of those groups, respectively, had engaged in economic protest. Similarly, 27 percent of those who would register had done unpaid volunteer work, half-dozen percent had contributed coin to a candidate, and 8 per centum had attended a community meeting, all which closely track the rates amidst occasional voters (25 percentage, 6 per centum, and 7 percent, respectively. See Effigy ix.)

Decision

The unregistered differ in many ways from those who vote frequently: They are less interested in politics, less engaged in borough activities, and more cynical nearly their ability to understand and influence government, just they are not appreciably different on these measures from individuals who are registered simply rarely vote. Nonetheless, the unregistered population is not entirely unengaged from civic life; some indicated that they would register, and that grouping also reported participating in community or political activities at rates similar to occasional and semifrequent voters. Further, more than 40 percent of the unregistered cared who would win the presidency in 2016, and some indicated that they could be motivated to register in the time to come, though many also feel that the voting process does not affect the way governing decisions are made. These findings suggest that opportunities exist to appoint segments of the unregistered population, including through consistent outreach at motor vehicle agencies as required under the NVRA and public education campaigns designed to highlight the significance of private voter participation to election outcomes and the connection between local policies and bug these citizens care near, such every bit those for which they volunteer in their communities. Less than 20 percent of this group has been asked to register past a state bureau, and a substantial increment in that figure could help to improve registration rates and electoral participation among these disconnected citizens.

Methodology

The Voting Frequency Survey was conducted online in English language and Spanish from March 25 to April 19, 2016, by the GfK Group on behalf of The Pew Charitable Trusts. The total sample size was iii,763 U.S. citizens 18 years or older. GfK sampled households from its KnowledgePanel, a probability-based, nationally representative web panel. The margin of error, calculated with the blueprint effect, at the 95 percent level of confidence for the total sample is plus or minus ane.9 pct points. A full methodology, including margins of error for key subgroups, is given in Appendix A: Voting Frequency Survey Methodology, bachelor on the chartbook webpage. The survey questions and frequencies are available in Appendix B: Voting Frequency Survey Topline.

Endnotes

The Census Bureau calculated that 35.4 per centum of eligible citizens were non registered to vote in 2014, as reported in "Who Votes? Congressional Elections and the American Electorate: 1978-2014," July 16, 2015, https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2015/demo/p20-577.html. Still, researchers hold that this calculation artificially inflates the percent of the population that is unregistered because it includes those who were non asked or did not answer the registration question in the Voting and Registration Supplement as beingness unregistered. More information on the method for adjusting the registration rate can be found in The Pew Charitable Trusts, Elections Performance Index: Methodology (August 2016), http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/assets/2016/08/epi_methodology.pdf.
The National Voter Registration Act applies to 44 states and the District of Columbia. Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming are exempt because at the time the law was implemented, they offered Election Day registration or had no registration requirements.
National Conference of State Legislatures, "Automatic Voter Registration," March 8, 2017, http://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/automated-voter-registration.aspx.
National Conference of State Legislatures, "Same Day Voter Registration," Jan. 11, 2017, http://world wide web.ncsl.org/enquiry/elections-and-campaigns/aforementioned-mean solar day-registration.aspx.
Differences are within the margins of fault, which are iii.62 percentage points for the subgroup of unregistered respondents and 2.21 percentage points for registered voters.
Eric Geller and Darren Samuelsohn, "More than Than 20 States Accept Faced Major Election Hacking Attempts, DHS Says," Politico, Oct. 3, 2016, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/states-major-election-hacking-228978.
D.J. Neri, Jess Leifer, and Anthony Barrows, "Graduating Students into Voters" (April 2016), http://www.aascu.org/programs/ADP/StudentsintoVoters.pdf.
Michael P. McDonald, United states Elections Project,"Voter Turnout," accessed Feb. six, 2017, http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/voter-turnout-data.
The question asked: "There are many types of elections such equally federal elections for president and members of Congress, primary elections where voters cull party nominees, local elections for city council and school board, and special elections when vacancies arise in between scheduled elections. Which best describes how frequently you vote, since you lot became eligible? Every election without exception, Almost every election – may have missed i or two, Some elections, Rarely, Don't vote in elections." The four frequencies of voting reverberate respondents' answers to the question of how oft they vote. Individuals who answered "Every election without exception" are divers as frequent voters, "Almost every election – may have missed one or two" are semifrequent voters, "Some elections" are categorized as occasional voters, and the answers "Rarely" and "Don't vote in elections" were combined into a group called rare or nonvoters, both due to sample size and considering these ii groups were about identical on key measures.
Richard G. Niemi, Stephen C. Craig, and Franco Mattei, "Measuring Internal Political Efficacy in the 1988 National Election Written report," The American Political Scientific discipline Review 85, no. four (1991): 1407–13, doi:ten.2307/1963953.