Our Languishing Democracy : To Reverse the Decline, Universal Voter Registration Is a Must

People all over the world are fighting for political democracy. They struggle against ruthless armed forces, as in China, and computerized police states, as in South Africa. Many, like the martyrs of Tian An Men Square, and the thousands of freedom fighters shot down by South African police in the last five years, have given their lives in the struggle for popular rule.

As Americans, we have done little to promote the cause of these revolutionary democrats. One reason we are not in the forefront of the international democratic revolution is that meaningful democracy in the United States is itself languishing because of corporate domination and declining popular participation.

At the heart of this scandal is the fact that only 50% of the eligible electorate voted in last November’s presidential election.

How can we hold ourselves out to the rest of the world as the fountain of democracy when we have a lower rate of voter participation than Panama, Nicaragua, the Soviet Union and every Western European democracy?

How can we call ourselves the future of democracy, instead of its past, when the one-quarter of the population that votes for a winning President determines the course of America for the three-quarters of the population that either opposed the winner or didn’t vote?

And how can we keep faith with James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and Medgar Evers, who gave their lives for universal suffrage, when we endure this absurd and perilous situation?

The first and single most important step we must take to reverse the degradation of American democracy is to pass federal legislation promoting universal voter registration. Of the 75 million Americans who failed to vote last November, 59 million were not registered. Of these 59 million, the largest single demographic group by far--12 million--are those between the ages of 18 and 24, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. These young people, disproportionately exposed to drugs, violence and the other ravages of this decade’s savage culture, are in danger of being permanently lost to the democratic culture in which voting is the most minimal expression of personal involvement.

To revitalize our half-democracy, we need all our citizens to vote. But we have to get them registered first. Studies have shown that 80% of registered voters actually vote, while, of course, no unregistered voter does.

In my experience with voter registration drives--the Rainbow Coalition has registered between 2 million and 3 million Americans--I have found that most of the unregistered want to vote, but have been kept away by archaic state laws, discriminatory local policies and intransigent registrars.

In September, 1983, the Muskogee County Board of Voter Registrars in Georgia refused black churches the right to conduct voter registration drives, claiming that it would violate the separation between church and state.

In Big Horn County, Mont., an American Indian testified in U.S. district court that he was told by a registrar that they were “running low” on registration cards, but that when his wife, who is white, went in minutes later, she was given an extra 50 cards.

In Little Rock, Ark., the registrar of voters recently rejected 20 to 30 completely valid voter applications because some deputies wrote “nmn,” signifying “no middle name” in the blank for middle names.

These cases are not isolated instances of abuse, but vivid demonstrations of the way in which inaccessible and hostile registrars, massive systematic purges of registered voters for not voting in an election, discriminatory mail-confirmation purges, ballot-integrity challenges targeted at minorities and prohibitions against on-campus student registration are combining to keep registration of the poorer, younger and less powerful parts of the population down.

To those Americans who still love democracy--not as an excuse for foreign military intervention but as the only way that free men and women can live together and remain free--these obstacles to participation are a scandal.

That is why Congress should pass the National Voter Registration Act of 1989, which prohibits removing the names of registered voters who may not have voted in recent elections, provides for registration by mail, provides for simultaneous registration with application for a driver’s license and permits expanded registration opportunities at the offices of state, local and federal agencies (including public high schools and colleges).

There also are significant amendments to the bill that deserve support, including one that allows registration at various government offices and another that provides for registration on Election Day.

Same-day registration is good enough for many of the world’s democracies--so it should be good enough for the world’s leading democracy, the democracy that we must once again make the light of the world.