Also known as the “Motor Voter” law, this act was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Its purpose was to make it easier for citizens to vote by requiring states to provide a process for mail-in and in-person registration, and to permit citizens to register to vote when applying for or renewing a driver’s license. Other federal agencies that provide services to the public may also be designated as voter registration agencies. The Department of Defense was authorized under the act to develop procedures for voter registration at military recruitment offices. The act also limited states’ ability to arbitrarily purge voters from the election rolls (rules that were later modified by the Help America Vote Act [HAVA]).
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission, created in 2002 by HAVA, prepares biannual reports for Congress on the states’ implementation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). While there is modest statistical support for the NVRA’s effects on increased voter turnout in the United States, there is far more substantial evidence of an increase in voter registration in the period after the legislation was enacted, particularly among voters under the age of thirty. The driver’s license renewal component of the law has been far more successful in improving turnout than has mail-in voter registration.
While the NVRA obligates states to register voters at locations where citizens receive public assistance, enforcement of this requirement is notoriously lax. In 2010, the Justice Department notified the states of federal guidelines and warned them about potential legal problems for noncompliance. Thus, many states were required to register poor voters at welfare offices for the first time in the Campaign of 2012, as Attorney General Eric Holder engaged in more stringent enforcement of voting rights laws.
Franklin, Daniel P., and Eric E. Grier. “Effects of Motor Voter Legislation: Voter Turnout, Registration, and Partisan Advantage in the 1992 Presidential Election.” American Politics Research 25, no. 1 (January 1997): 104–117.
Highton, Benjamin, and Raymond E. Wolfinger. “Estimating the Effects of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.” Political Behavior 20, no. 2 (1998): 79–104.
Knack, Stephen. “Does Motor Voter Work? Evidence from State-Level Data.” Journal of Politics (1995): 796–811.
New York Times. “A Welfare Check and a Voting Card.” Editorial, August 9, 2010.
U.S. Election Assistance Commission. “National Voter Registration Act Studies.” http://www.eac.gov/research/national_voter_registration_act_studies.aspx. Accessed October 15, 2015.