Jul 22, 2018 3 min read

There are a lot of reasons that have been offered over the years for why Americans vote in smaller numbers than people in other industrialized democracies, and here’s another to add to the list:

Moving vans.

Of course, the vans themselves have not done anything to deter anyone from making it to the polls. But the United States has traditionally been a mobile society, though that has slowed somewhat in the years since the Great Recession, and because moving is an experience packed with stress and frustration, usually the last thing people think about when they are in the middle of the maelstrom is changing their address at the local elections office.

Then, when it comes time to vote, they realize their voter registration isn’t up to date and they skip the election.

In a recent interview with Philadelphia’s Philly.com site, Jonathan Marks, who oversees the administration of Pennsylvania’s elections, admitted that when he was younger and hopping from place to place, “the last thing I thought about was updating my voter registration.”

Fortunately, in Pennsylvania, we have online voter registration. Twenty-two percent of registrations or changes to information have been made online since it was first made available in 2015, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State. All told, it’s been used more than 1 million times.

That’s good. But Pennsylvania can do better when it comes to increasing voter participation and making it easier for the commonwealth’s residents to cast ballots.

A recent report by the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, examined voting laws in all 50 states, and found that Pennsylvania met only two of the eight benchmarks it set to make voting easier for citizens: It offers online voter registration, and the voting rights of felons are restored after they’ve been incarcerated. But beyond that Pennsylvania falls short. It does not offer same-day or automatic registration, early and no-excuse absentee voting, or options that would allow voters to cast ballots at home. Pennsylvania also does not allow 16- or 17-year-olds to register in advance of their 18th birthdays.

We’re not among the worst states, which include Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Texas, but we’re not among the best, either, and that list includes our neighbors Maryland and New Jersey, as well as Utah, Illinois and California.

Gov. Tom Wolf has put forth a plan that would allow no-excuse absentee ballots and automatic voter registration, but there’s probably little prospect of any of his proposals getting anywhere without more Democrats being elected to the Legislature. Republicans, both here and elsewhere, have been diligent in recent years in trying to limit voting rights, whether it’s through limiting early voting or instituting voter ID laws, the latter of which have been peddled with the idea that they combat voter fraud. However, when Pennsylvania’s voter ID law was struck down by a Commonwealth Court judge in 2014, Witold Walczak of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania told The New York Times, “The type of problem that is addressed by voter ID laws is virtually nonexistent, which does raise the question of why they are passing these laws. And the answer is that it is a voter suppression tool.”

There’s been a lot of concern lately about the health of American democracy. Making it easier for people to vote would be a vital first step in making our democracy stronger.