Automatic Voter Registration

First of all, I must state that this debate is solely concerned with whether or not automatic voter registration should be implemented within a democracy, not whether or not democracy should exist as a political system. Such discussion should be reserved for another debate. With that in mind, here is my main argument. In comparison to traditional voter registration, automatic voter registration would be able to save time for voters by eliminating the need for any voter to fill out any forms needed to officially register to vote, while at the same time, it would also save the state time by eliminating the need to process any such forms needed to register said voter. This would be accomplished by tying voter registration to existing government databases, such as tax information, employment information, address information, or other information that is not available to the state, but to the federal government, which state governments could easily request. [1] For example, the state already knows where each resident living within it's boundaries resides, and the state already knows the boundaries of its voting precincts, so automatic voter registration would simplify changing a voter's voting precinct by tying it to a voter's change of address. Furthermore, this would allow for a simpler change in state voter registration, where if a voting-age American moves to a different state, that voter's new address would be given to both the voter's previous state of residence, and his or her current state of residence, allowing for simpler additions to the current state's registered voter population, and simpler removal from the previous state's registered voter population. [1] As for automatically registering new voters, there is plenty of information available to the state that can be used to register those voters. Employment information, for example, is already available to the state since employers have to give an employee's information to the state so taxes can be deducted from that employee's paycheck. Also, states have access to social security information, and each citizen of the United States is given a social security number at birth. States could use this information available to monitor when a resident of the state becomes eligible to vote, and thus is able to be registered. [1] Now, apart from streamlining the voter registration process, there is another benefit to having automatic voter registration in place, and that benefit is increased voter turnout. as of November 2014, there were approximately 219 million eligible voters in the United States.[2] In the 2014 midterm elections, approximately 92 million of those eligible voters voted in the 2014 elections, constituting a voter turnout of roughly thirty-nine percent of the total voting eligible population.[2] However, when taking into account the number of eligible voters that were registered as of November 2014, which stands at 142 million, or roughly sixty-five percent of the total US voting eligible population, then the voter turnout jumps to sixty-five percent of total registered voters.[2] If all eligible voters in the US were registered to vote, and if they turn out at roughly the same rate as registered voters did in 2014, then there would be an additional fifty million votes counted during that election. In short, automatic voter registration simplifies voter registration, and manages to boost voter turnout by getting more people registered to vote, allowing for elections to more accurately reflect the total voting eligible population. Sources: [1]: http://www.fairvote.org...... [2]: http://www.census.gov......