Easing the Burden of Voter Registration

In a recent editorial in the Washington Post, Victoria Bassetti writes about policy alternatives aimed at “Easing the burden of voter registration.” Bassetti contrasts the United States, where the voter is burdened with registration, with many other democratic nations where the government handles registration. She argues that these contrasting registration systems explain why the United States has election participation rates way below those of other nations. Bassetti writes:

“Many political and social scientists believe that our country’s practice of putting the registration burden on individuals, coupled with outmoded, paper-intense registration systems, are major causes of the United States’ perennially low voter turnout. One study estimated that voter registration barriers in the United States depress turnout by 5 to 10 percent.”

Economic theory states that if a voter is a rational decision-maker, they will only vote if the marginal benefits of voting are greater than or equal to the marginal costs. Marginal costs include pre-election day costs as well as the costs incurred on Election Day (i.e. missing work). Bassetti contends that that by requiring the voter to register and through a system that is paper-intense (i.e. requiring printing, buying a stamp, mailing, etc), the marginal cost of voting is very large. It is therefore rational for Americans to abstain from voting, because the marginal cost exceeds the marginal benefit of voting. Bassetti proposes to remove the burden of registration from the voter and place it on the government, decreasing the marginal cost and making it more rational to vote. Bassetti references Canada: “In Canada, election officials gather information on citizens from other data sources (for example, tax rolls) and create a continuously updated, comprehensive list of voters. Almost 93 percent of eligible Canadian voters are automatically put on its voter rolls. The ones who don’t make it can register on Election Day.” Bassetti’s proposal is compelling because it is an actionable way that the government could ease the burden of registration, in the hopes of making the voters’ economic calculus more favorable to showing up on Election Day. I think it is important to point out that for many settled adults, registration is a one-time cost that should not affect the yearly rational calculus except for the election year in which the registration had to be submitted or changed. Therefore other ways to improve turnout should be considered, either by reducing Election Day costs or by increasing marginal benefits through a reform of the electoral system. In addition, a related topic that could be pursued theoretically is to ask whether proposals to reform the system of elections (such as Bassetti’s proposal) would ever make the marginal cost to the government of facilitating elections greater than the marginal benefit to the government.