Georgia switched to automatic voter registration (opt-out)

[Virginiá]

I don't know how this was missed, but that huge registration surge apparently is because Georgia switched to "opt-out" as opposed to "opt-in." This is basically a weaker, semi-automatic form of voter registration:

http://www.macon.com/news/local/article147934484.html

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HOW was this missed? I never saw any news stories or notifications that Georgia effectively switched to automatic voter registration. Further, why would GA Republicans of all people do this? It doesn't make sense.

**edit: Should be noted that while it may be opt-out, the person must sign the form attesting they are eligible to vote. This is all done on a combined form, so while it's not completely automatic, it's also streamlined enough to result in a huge registration surge.

[Bacon King]

I had to go to the DMV today and I was able to change the address of my voting location on the same form I used to request a new license (I lost it and had also been putting off changing it to my new address anyway). Very useful!

[muon2]

An attestation of eligibility is required for the federal National Voter Registration Act. Opt out boxes are the standard for AVR in CA, CT, VT and WV. I'm not sure why this would be called semi-AVR, it sounds like regular AVR to me.

[Virginiá]

An attestation of eligibility is required for the federal National Voter Registration Act. Opt out boxes are the standard for AVR in CA, CT, VT and WV. I'm not sure why this would be called semi-AVR, it sounds like regular AVR to me.

I was a little confused as to the exact procedure for registration, and considering it is Georgia, I wasn't prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. It seems like something Republicans would fight tooth and nail, not voluntarily implement. I don't know all the specifics, but I feel like they could have gotten away with making it a bit more cumbersome.

I'll edit the title.

[NOVA Green]

Awesome news!

Surprised it is coming from all places Georgia, where voter suppression tends to be more the norm, rather than the exception.

Honestly I don't care that much about the political impacts of AVR, in terms of what party it benefits more in any particular state.... Voting is a right, not a privilege, and in my mind AVR makes it might easier for all Citizens to be able to practice their right to vote, although I would go even further, like Oregon did many years ago, and also shift towards a Vote-by-Mail (VbM) system to make it even more accessible.... Throw in voters pamphlets sent to all voter's registered addresses, where we can pick and choose through candidates from all parties and all races, and then take our time over an hour or two, sometimes even a week or two, before deciding which candidate will best represent us, within our current political system.

[muon2]

This doesn't sound like something that would be good for Republicans at all in that state. Probably about 400000 are legitimate (duplicates may be the remainder). If the bulk of these are people who are transplants or people who recently came of age, chances are they'd be pretty solidly D-leaning. I can't believe no one's discovered this yet.

I don't know if this is an issue in GA, but some states have experienced a lot of cost and confusion with people casting provisional ballots. The largest number of those come from people who had moved but hadn't updated their voting address with the county clerk.

In IL in the 2016 primary there was a large number of provisional ballots on the Pub side from an influx of Trump voters. This was a particular problem for staff in smaller downstate counties. The clerks in IL would like this to be handled in a more automatic way. Maybe GA saw the same thing.

Automatic voter registration should solve most of that problem by shifting registrations when people update their license at the DMV. If clerks were spending a lot of time tracking down provisional ballot addresses in GA, then AVR could be seen as a cost saving program there. It wouldn't be a partisan issue if it's mostly just shifting provisional ballot voters to regular ballots.