ELECTIONS : Motor-Voter Registration Bill Stirs Up Sharp Debate

With another presidential election season drawing near, and with it the national embarrassment of low voter turnout, Congress is considering a simple proposal that would add an estimated 50 million Americans to the voting rolls.

The idea, already adopted in some form by 11 states and the District of Columbia, is to register eligible voters automatically when they renew their driver’s licenses.

That may sound as uncontroversial as a new recipe for cherry pie, and Congress almost approved a so-called “motor-voter” bill last year. But now, while everyone deplores low turnout, the bill is a subject of sharp debate.

BACKGROUND: Roughly 63% of eligible Americans are now registered voters; by contrast, 91% of eligible voters hold driver’s licenses or equivalent state-issued identity cards.

And, while overall voter turnout in the 1990 elections was the lowest since 1946, states with motor-voter registration “have exhibited higher voter registration and turnout rates than states without motor-voter registration,” according to the Congressional Research Service, based on data from federal elections since 1976.

PRO: “Motor-voter” advocates see it as remarkably effective and cost-efficient. They say the United States is the only industrial democracy that puts the burden of registering on the individual. “For us not to be making it as easy as possible for people to vote in the face of declining participation is inconsistent with our promotion of democracy around the world,” Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) says.

Beneath the high-minded arguments, some politicians in both parties see potential partisan gains:

Many Democrats support motor-voter as a way to enroll less affluent citizens--especially minorities--who tend to vote Democratic but are hard to reach with normal registration drives. Some Republicans think it would work just the other way around by picking up millions of affluent young people who are likely to vote Republican--and more likely than the poor to get to the polls on Election Day.

CON: Opponents say there is scant evidence that easing registration improves turnout.

Privately, some Republicans express fear that “motor-voter” would help Democrats more than the GOP. And conservative opponents in both parties doubt the desirability of stimulating voter participation by citizens too apathetic and uninvolved to get themselves registered under existing systems.

Cost is a big issue for opponents too. President Bush has expressed concern about the financial burden. So have state officials already faced with budget crunches. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that “motor-voter” would cost states up to $25 million a year, plus a onetime cost of $70 million for jurisdictions needing computers, but California’s Democratic secretary of state, March Fong Eu, figures California alone faces added costs of at least $30 million.

Last year’s House-passed bill authorized only $50 million in federal aid to all states.

OUTLOOK: With Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress, the bill might have good prospects on a straight up-or-down vote. But last year, after passing the House, it died when the Senate fell five votes short of cutting off a filibuster.

The same fate seems likely this year, unless Bush drops his opposition.