By Katherine Gregg Journal Political Writer
PROVIDENCE — Legislation to automatically put anyone who applies for a Rhode Island driver’s license on the state’s voter rolls, unless they opt out, is headed for a House committee vote on Wednesday, despite recent findings that voters are registered now at police stations, UPS stores, strip malls and other bogus “home” addresses.
The bill is one of 13 pieces of legislation slated for votes by the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, on their way to House approval.
Championed by Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, the move towards automatic voter registration has the backing of Gov. Gina Raimondo and many groups, including the NAACP, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause Rhode Island, Young Democrats of R.I., and the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island.
In its written testimony to the committee on March 21, CommonCauseRI said, “Automatic voter registration means more eligible voters are registered, reducing confusion at the polling place when voters who are not registered, or who are registered at an old address, show up to vote.”
CommonCauseRI made another argument: “Automatic voter registration will continue to move us away from our paper-based system.... There will be fewer errors in the voter file and ultimately less bloated voter rolls because voters will automatically have their new address transferred unless they opt out.”
Advocates presented the lawmakers with the findings of a Jan. 3-12 Global Strategy Group poll of 302 registered voters that found that 76 percent of those surveyed support automatic voter registration.
“Support remains strong [68 percent] even under the most withering criticism ... including misleading [claims] that AVR [automatic voter registration] will open the system to hacking, fraud and illegal immigrants,” the Global Strategy Group reported.
In her own letter to lawmakers, Raimondo said, “The opt-out system will reduce the potential for voter fraud, reduce administrative issues on Election Day, and lessen confusion for voters who have changed their information.”
More specifically, the bill would automatically register to vote everyone who applies to the Department of Motor Vehicles for a driver’s license, renewal or personal identification document “unless they expressly decline to do so.”
It would also require that the person certify that he or she is an American citizen.
The ACLU gave qualified support. On the one hand, it said, “registering to vote should be easy.”
“At the same time, without safeguards, people not qualified to vote — immigrants who have not become citizens, for example — could find themselves inadvertently registered. This could subject people to prosecution. It could be an even more serious problem if an individual doesn’t understand that, even though registered, she or he is still not allowed to vote, and then casts a ballot,” the ACLU said.
“We therefore believe that the legislation should include a clear voter attestation standard in the registration process, and one that takes into account both the needs of English language learners and persons with disabilities. The process should make clear that voting is not a condition of receiving whatever benefit the person is seeking.”
The drive for automatic registrations follows findings that at least 125 Rhode Islanders — including police officers — are illegally registered to vote from strip malls, UPS stores, police stations and other locations that are not, as state law requires, their permanent and fixed residence.
The findings were shared with the state Board of Elections by two-time gubernatorial candidate Ken Block as part of a national voter fraud project he described on his WatchdogRI.org website this way: “Use voter registration and voter history data to identify voter fraud within a state and between states.”
Several of the police officers — including one who lives in Massachusetts — said they had no idea how they got registered as Providence voters, at the address of the Providence Police Station, though they acknowledged that they registered vehicles at the station, as state law allows.