Testimony of David Becker
The Pew Charitable Trusts
SenateGovernment Oversight and ReformCommittee
June10, 2015
Good morning. I am DavidBecker, Director of Election Initiatives forThe Pew Charitable Trusts. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss an important upgrade to Ohio’s election system.The Pew Charitable Trusts is pleased to support SB63.Pushing the registration process online will improve the integrity and efficiency of Ohio’s voter rolls.
Online voter registration has been offered in the states for over a decade, beginning with Arizona in 2002. Today, 20 states and the District of Columbia offer their citizens the ability toregister or update their existing registration recordelectronically, without need to sign, print, or mail a paper form. Six others have passed legislation and are currently building systems, including Florida, New Mexico, andOklahoma, which all passed bills this year. Currently, well over 100 million eligible American votershave access to online voter registration, and by the time Americans go to the polls to elect their next president, that number will likely be well over 150 million.[i]
Why has online voter registration spread to so many states, red states and blue states alike? Because it is one of those rare win-wins in government. Online voter registration enhances the security, accuracy, and integrity of the voter lists, while saving taxpayers potentially millions of dollars. Indeed, online voter registration is enormously popular among both voters and election officials in the states that offer it, and unsurprisingly, among those states, there is not one that has even considered returning to the days requiring their citizens to use paper registration forms.
When states have offered their voters the opportunity to register online, they have seen a significant improvement in the security and integrity of their voter rolls. Online registration removes the paper “middle-man” from the registration process. Where third party groups are often encouraging citizens to fill out paper forms by hand, and holding those forms until they turn them in to local election officials, online registration puts the power of registration directly into the hands of voters, where they can ensure that the information is correct, legible, and immediately submitted to election officials.
And because online applicants in most states provide a Driver’s License or state ID number that is checked one-to-one against the voter’s file on record with the state—as is proposed in Ohio—citizens who register to vote online go through additional identity verification beyond that applied to those who register with paper.
Furthermore, the security of online voter registration systems is significantly better than existing paper registration. Unlike the paper process, no state has reported a security breach or fraudulent activity resulting from the use of its online registration system. But states realize that as with any web-based system, continued vigilance is important. To ensure voters’ information remains private and protected, states have commonly employed security measures such as data encryption, audit logs, CAPTCHA, and secure networks, and flag IP addresses from which unusual traffic originates for investigation. These security measures cannot be employed with paper forms.
In addition, voter registration applications received electronically also result in more accurate records at a lower processing cost. By eliminating that paper “middle man,” online registration removes the primary causes of data errors—such as sloppy handwriting on paper forms and third-party data entry. In 2009, election officials in Maricopa County, Arizona found that voter registration applications received on paper were up to five times more likely to result in an error in the official voter record than applications received electronically.[ii]
And finally, by heavilyreducing the primary cost drivers of the registration process—paper, printing, postage, and manual data entry—online registration gives citizens and election officials a much better product for a much lower pricetag. In Maricopa County, Arizona, on average each online registration application costs $0.80 less than a paper transaction, leading to savings of nearly $1.4 million during the four-year period between 2008-2012.[iii] In 2013, Colorado performed an exhaustive study of the costs associated with online voter registration, and found that paper applications cost about $0.71 more to process than online voter registration transactions, leading to a savings of over $565,000 in the previous three years.[iv]
Online voter registration can improve the accuracy and integrity of Ohio election system, while saving taxpayer money and providing a secure and convenient path to register to vote. And importantly, for those Ohio voters who might not have access to the internet, or prefer not to conduct their registration activity online, paper will continue to be an option, as it has been in every single state that offers online registration. Furthermore, since fewer paper applications will be submitted to election officials, particularly during the time immediately before a presidential election, online registration will even benefit those that choose a paper application, since election officials can better process these applications with fewer errors, simply because there will be far fewer to process.
Because of these benefits, last year, the bipartisan Presidential Commission on Election Administration (PCEA), chaired by the chief campaign lawyers from the Obama and Romney 2012 Presidential campaigns, recommended that all states adopt online voter registration.[v]And diverse groups from civil rights and progressive groups to the Republican National Lawyers Association have echoed this support for online voter registration.[vi]
Ohioans, like all Americans, are looking to interact with their government through the technology they use in their everyday lives. Citizens no longer need rely on paper for almost any government transactions, including filling out their taxes, paying parking tickets, or renewing their drivers license. And yet, in Ohio and a dwindling number of states, citizens must still find an official government paper voter registration application, fill it out by hand, and submit it to a government official. PewcommendsSecretary of State Husted, and this committee, for your efforts to improve the efficiency and integrity of your voter registration system by considering joining the majority of states that will be offering online voter registration to their citizens by 2016.
Thank you, again, for the opportunity to address the Committee. I would be happy to take any questions you may have at this time.
[i] The Pew Charitable Trusts: Online Registration Now Available to Nearly Half of Eligible Voters, September 30, 2014.
[ii] The Brennan Center for Justice: The Case for Voter Registration Modernization, 2013.
[iii]Matt A. Barreto, Bonnie Glaser, Karin Mac Donald, Loren Collingwood, Francisco Pedraza, Barry Pump: Online Voter Registration: Case Studies in Arizona and Washington, April 1, 2011.
[iv] Colorado Secretary of State. Colorado’s Online Voter Registration: Cost Savings Analysis, November 20, 2013.
[v] Presidential Commission on Election Administration: The American Voting Experience: Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.
[vi] Republican National Lawyers Association: RNLA Response to the Report and Recommendations of the Presidential Commission on Election Administration.