Motor Voter

Registration

Programs

Motor Voter

Registration

Programs

Author:

Robert S. Montjoy

Director, MPA Program

1224 Haley Center

Auburn University, Alabama 36849

Managed and Edited by:

William C. Kimberling

National Clearinghouse on Election Administration

Published by:

National Clearinghouse on Election Administration

Federal Election Commission

Washington, D.C. 20463

September 1992
Introduction by the

Clearinghouse

This report is another in the series on Innovations in Election Administration being published by the FEC's National Clearinghouse on

Election Administration.

The purpose of this series is to acquaint State

and local election officials with innovative election procedures and technologies that have been

successfully implemented by their colleagues

around the country.

Our reports on these innovations do not

necessarily constitute an endorsement by

the Federal Election Commission either of

the procedures described or of the vendors

or suppliers that might be listed within the

report. Moreover, the views and opinions

expressed in these reports are those of the

author and are not necessarily shared by

the Federal Election Commission or any

division thereof.

We welcome you comments on these reports as

well as any suggestions you may have for additional topics. You may mail these to us at:

The National Clearinghouse on

Election Administration

Federal Election Commission

999 E. Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20463

or else call us

toll free on 800/424-9530 or

direct on 202/219-3670.
Motor Voter

Registration

Programs

Introduction

"Motor Voter" is the popular name for a system

in which people can apply for voter registration in

the same offices where they obtain driver's licenses or, in a few cases, where they register

vehicles. About half of the states now use some

version of this system and legislation is pending

in several others.

This report is designed for the benefit of jurisdictions that are considering adoption or modification. For this reason it draws upon examples

from many jurisdictions to generalize about the

effects of different program designs. It does not

attempt to describe the complete or current operation of any single jurisdiction.

The implementation of a motor voter system

requires the interaction of officials from two

agencies, one having responsibility for voters and

the other having responsibility for motor vehicle

operators, who have no reason to be familiar with

each other's basic procedures. The report attempts to address both audiences and so includes

some material that will seem basic and unnecessary to each.

The primary data sources used in this report

are written surveys, telephone interviews, and

site visits with voter registration and driver licensing personnel in the states and a sample of

local jurisdictions that use motor voter. Information on registration procedures and administrative structure in all of the states came from the

National Clearinghouse of Elections

Administration's Technical Report Series. All

population figures and estimates of voter registration are taken from the U.S. Census Bureau,

Current Population Reports Series P-20. Information on licensed drivers and driver licensing

requirements came from Federal Highway Administration Driver License series.

Motor Voter Systems

This report details many of the variations in

motor voter systems currently being used. It

begins, however, with a basic model having a few

common steps. (1) People waiting in an office to

get driver's licenses learn that they may also

apply for voter registration or change their registration information there. (2) Those who wish

to do so complete the necessary forms, with or

without assistance from the staff in the office. (3)

The completed form is sent, directly or indirectly,

to the registration office of the locale where the

applicant resides. (4) Registration officials act on

the application more or less as they would on any

other application.

Motor voter systems are often classified in

three categories - passive, active, and combined - based upon variations of the first two

steps described above. Passive systems place

voter registration forms in the driver's license

office and rely on the voter's initiative to complete

them. The forms are separate from the driver's

license application and can be the same form that

is used in other registration systems within that
jurisdiction. Active systems also use separate

registration forms but provide a proactive means

of notifying the voter. This may be a question

printed on the driver's license application or a

requirement that a clerk ask the applicant if he or

she wishes to register.

Combined systems place the driver's license

and voter registration applications on the same

form, often sharing information to reduce redundancy. Notification of the voter is automatic; he

or she encounters the voter registration opportunity in the process of completing the form.

Several jurisdictions have adopted acomputerassisted alternative to the combined form. A

clerk collects the information necessary for a

driver's license application and enters it into a

computer. The computer then prints out a voter

registration application for the applicant to review, modify as necessary, and sign. This system

is like the combined system in that the applicant

does not have to write the same information on

two different forms. It is like the active system in

that the clerk typically asks the voter if he or she

wishes to register. This system is sufficiently

distinct to merit separate discussion in this report.

Thus we have four basic systems:

• passive

• active

• combined

• computer-assisted.

Each system has variations and each distributes the tasks in the registration process differently among the applicants, motor vehicle agency

staff, state election officials, and local election

officials.

That, essentially, is what motor voter is. Because of the debate that has surrounded proposals for these systems in many jurisdictions, it is

important to recognize what motor voter is not.

First, and most importantly, no system provides for an automatic registration at the driver's

license bureau and no system allows people who

could not otherwise vote to do so on the basis of a

driver's license alone. The applications are sent

to the regular voter registration authorities, usually an office in the county or township where the

prospective voter resides, and there they are

processed just as other applications are, with a

few procedural adjustments in some cases.

Second, motor voter does not require an integration or even an interface of computer systems

between the motor vehicle and election offices.

While such interaction is technically possible,

only one jurisdiction studied for this report has

attempted it, the State of Washington. Of course,

the desirability of a computer link between driver

licensing and voter registration systems may

depend, in part, upon unique requirements of

each state's election system. It is not, however, an

inherent part of a motor voter system.

The ways in which a motor voter system can be

implemented depend in large part upon the legal

and organizational environment in which it is

placed. Motor voter is a marriage of two distinct

systems: the driver's license system and the voter

registration system. Each has its own personnel,

procedures, legal constraints, organizational culture, habits, and all the other characteristics

which build up over time and which make each

organization different. Joining certain operations of the two will require at least one organization to change procedures. The amount of

change necessary, the willingness of the personnel from different agencies to cooperate, and the

amount of outside resources or pressure available

to facilitate the transition will all affect the success of the system.

Voter Registration Systems

The task of voter registration is to maintain a

current list of persons who are eligible to vote in

a specific jurisdiction or electoral district by reason

of citizenship, residence, age, and the absence of

any disqualifying conditions. In the United States

the primary responsibility for initiating registration and keeping it current lies with the voter, but

registration officials use a number of means to
ease the burden of registration and to collect

information for voter file maintenance. Motor

voter serves both functions of voter registration

and voter file maintenance.

The organization and procedures for voter

registration vary from state to state. They include

a few common elements. (1) A voter obtains and

completes an application. (2) The voter delivers

or sends the application to an election official or

board. (3) The board reviews the application for

completeness and conformity to state law. (4)

The board registers the names of successful applicants and notifies those who were rejected. (5)

The board maintains the registration records and

provides them to other officials as needed. The

most common usage is for checking voter eligibility

at the polling places on election day. (6) Between

elections registrars try to keep their files current

by recording changes of name or address and by

removing the names of persons who have died,

moved away, or otherwise becoe ineligible to vote

in that jurisdiction. Motor voter is directly involved in elements 1,2, and 6.

Jurisdictional boundaries are much more important in voter registration systems than they

are in driver's license systems. A driver's license

is valid for the entire state and, temporarily, in all

other states. Voter registration is valid only in

the electoral district where the voter resides. The

reason, of course, is that representation in the

United States is based upon geographic districts.

Where one lives determines where one votes.

Because of its historical association with place,

voter registration has almost always been a

function of local government. (Alaska is an exception, using a statewide system of four regional

offices and 3,000 appointed registrars.) The most

common form of organization is based on the

county. The registration function may be housed

in the office of the county clerk, in a separate

election office, or even in a separate voter registration office. Many of these offices are headed by

elected officials. In other cases the registration

officials are appointed, usually through some

procedure to guarantee representation of different parties. Some registration systems are decentralized to townships and/or municipalities,

as is the case in some New England and

midwestern states. These offices can be very

independent of each other, even to the point of

designing their own registration forms. The

authority that state election officials can wield

over the registration process varies widely, but it

is generally less than that of their counterparts in

the state driver's license systems.

The degree of decentralization in a voter registration system is important because motor voter

systems require coordination among registrars

as well as between registrars and driver's license

personnel. Coordination is necessary in the design of forms and in the transfer of applications to

the appropriate jurisdictions. Both of these steps

are discussed later in this report. Coordination is

also important, especially important, in the planning of the many features of the program, including legislation, administrative procedures, training, monitoring, and evaluation. Thus, it is

essential to recognize who the players are in any

state system and to ensure that their views and

existing procedures and constraints are taken

into account.

Driver Licensing Systems

Except in the District of Columbia, the licensing

of drivers is a state function, although various

local governments and even private agencies may

also be involved in the process. The basic steps

appear to be common to all systems. (1) New

applicants go to an office to apply for a driver's

license. Some applicants may have to visit two

offices, depending upon the state and whether

they require a driving test. (2) They are tested.

(3) Each applicant takes her or his test results

and completed application form to a member of

the office staff, who reviews it and, usually, enters the relevant information into a computer on

the spot. The computer is likely to be a local

terminal for a statewide system. (4) A staff

member photographs the applicant. (5) The

photograph will be laminated to a card which
contains the applicant's name and other personal

information. If this step is not completed in the

office, the applicant receives a temporary card

and the regular card will be mailed later. (6) The

applicant receives the card and leaves the office.

The driver licensing system is run by the state

and designed to be accessible statewide. This fact

has several consequences for motor voter. Because the system is statewide, changes in official

procedure will normally have to be statewide,

especially any changes involving the central computer. Thus, the scope of any implementation

effort will be large. On the other hand, there will

be a central state office and a hierarchy which can

set policy and facilitate implementation in local

offices. In fact, the state agency that licenses

drivers will normally have more authority over

its field offices than the state's chief election or

registration officer will have over local registrars.

Another, and equally important, implication

of the system is that the jurisdiction of the

driver's license offices is statewide. Applicants

are not limited to offices in their city, county, or

township of residence. There are cities, townships, and even counties that have no full-time

driver's license office. As a result, the jurisdiction of most driver's license offices will not

be the same as the jurisdiction of voter registration offices. This situation complicates

the transfer of applications between offices.

Different states solve this problem in different

ways. The major approaches are discussed under

the heading "Transfer Responsibilities" below.

Statewide organization can be most facilitative of motor voter implementation in those few

states where the chief election officer is in charge

of driver's licenses as well. In fact, the first motor

voter system was initiated by the Secretary of

State in Michigan where this is the case. Having

a common authority over both functions solves a

lot of coordination problems. The most important

point for most states, however, is that they will

lack that common authority and must provide

other means of coordination. At least one state is

reported to have copied Michigan's system without any adjustments for the different authority

structures and to have suffered a number of

coordination problems as a result.

Points of Comparison between

Voter Registration and

Driver Licensing Systems

As the preceding discussion suggests, voter

registration and driver licensing systems are

similar in some ways and different in others.

Since motor voter requires a joining of these two

systems, a systematic comparison on key points

may be helpful.

• Function. The systems perform similar functions. Each establishes applicants' eligibility to

perform officially sanctioned acts (voting or driving). Each collects and stores data on individuals

in order to certify that eligibility as necessary. It

is this similarity that creates the prospect of

using part of the driver licensing system (information collection) in the voter registration process.

And because they perform these functions for

large numbers of people, the two systems share

another feature: the effect of anything that

changes the routine processing of individual cases

is multiplied many times over. Small changes

can have big consequences.

• Jurisdiction. As noted above, the systems

typically differ with regard to jurisdiction. Driver

licensing is performed by a state agency with

district offices or, as in the case of Ohio, by private

contractors working for a state agency. The

organization is hierarchical; a state official is in

charge. Voter registration is usually a county or

township function. Local registrars are often

elected, and the authority of state election officers varies considerably from state to state.

• Identification of Applicants. Every state

requires some positive identification before the

applicant can receive her or his first license to
drive in that jurisdiction. (FHWA 1992) In contrast, only fifteen states require positive identification by all applicants for voter registration.

(Kimberling 1990)

• Information Requirements. The ability to

share information is an important consideration

in combined-form and computer-assisted systems.

All driver licensing and voter registration agencies in the United States require the name and

the age or birth date of the applicant. All require

an address, as well, but driver licensing agencies

will typically accept a mailing address while

voter registration agencies must have a residence. The following information items are requested on voter registration applications in at

least twenty jurisdictions (states or the District of

Columbia) and are not normally collected by

driver licensing systems: place of birth, political

party, citizenship status, and place of prior registration. (Kimberling 1990, FHWA 1992)

• Renewals. Unlike voter registrations, driver's

licenses are issued for specified terms, which

vary with the type of license and individual ages

and driving records. Forty-three states and the

District of Columbia have maximum terms of

four years or less. The remaining seven states

have maximum terms of five years. At a minimum, the renewal process requires the driver to

review the information on the license and attest

to its correctness by signature. All but eleven

states mail renewal notices to drivers. In order to

spread the workload, most states schedule renewals on or around the applicant's birthday. A

few use the issuance date. (FHWA 1992)

• Populations Served. Figure 1 displays the

relative size of three groups - persons licensed to

drive, persons registered to vote, and persons

voting - all as percentages of the voting age

population. This graph illustrates two important

points. First, more people have driver's licenses

than are registered or vote. In 1990, almost 90

percent of the voting age population had driver's

licenses, but only 62 percent were registered to

vote. Both figures are approximations. The important point is that there is a large difference

between the rates. Approximately one fourth of

the age-eligible population is licensed to drive but

not registered to vote. This is the target for motor

voter programs.

Second, the patterns are different among the

three groups. Except for an anomalous bump in

1974, the driver's license line follows a steady

path of gradual increase. Registration and voting

rates, on the other hand, traced similar patterns

of decline during the time frame covered by this

chart. The largest drop came between 1968 and

1974. The patterns oscillated around a nearly

constant rate from 1974 through 1988 and then

dropped slightly in 1990. Both rates reflect the

four-year cycle of participation associated with

presidential elections, but the amplitude is greater

for voting rates than for registration rates. This

difference reflects the facts that voting requires a

positive act at each election but names stay on

registration lists until they are purged. Nevertheless, registration rates are affected by the

appeal of particular elections. This fact complicates any attempt to measure the effects of different registration systems. One has to take into

account the effects of different elections.

Driver licensing and voter registration rates

vary by age group, as well. Figure 2 shows that

both rates start low and rise steadily with increasing age. Yet the driver licensing rate starts

higher and peaks at an earlier age. Among the 18-

19 age group 80 percent have driver's licenses but

only 30 percent are registered to vote. The driver's

license rate surpasses 90 percent at the 20- 24

age, remains above that mark until the 55-59 age

group, and then declines to 67 percent for the group

above age 70. The voter registration rate is only

43 percent for the 20-24 age group, but it continues upward to 78 percent for the 65-69 age group

and declines only slightly to 75 percent for those

over age 70. There are several possible explanations for this pattern, including the different

experiences of the generations as they reached

driving and voting ages at different times in our

history. To the extent that this pattern is stable,

however, it represents an especially large target
for motor voter among young people. And the

table also suggests that, once registered, people

tend to stay registered.

Other Registration Systems

In addition to motor voter, states use several

other methods to facilitate voter registration and

file maintenance. These include: deputy registrars, agency registration, mail registration,

election day registration, and statewide computer

registration files. Do these affect the implementation of motor voter? Not directly, it appears,

except when the law for deputy registrars is

applied to motor vehicle personnel. That issue is

covered under "Legal Requirements" below.

There are some indirect effects, however. The

most common of these is the familiarization of the

public. Where they have become comfortable

with one method of voter outreach, they are likely

to accept another. For example, one official pointed

out that the debate over mail registration in his

state had been heavily concerned with the issue

of potential fraud or multiple registration. This

issue did not arise later in the discussion of motor

voter. He attributed that fact to the general

satisfaction with the way mail registration had

worked out. Motor voter is the more secure of the

two systems because, in most cases, people apply

in person before a government employee.

An official in Minnesota pointed out that election day registration reduced the pressure for

rapid transfer of applications from the driver's

license agencies to the voter registration agencies.

The potential for a person to apply at a motor

vehicle office just before the announced deadline

for registration but too late for the application to

reach the voter registration office is an issue of

concern in some states. That is not a problem in

Minnesota because the person would be allowed

to vote in any case, due to election day registration at the polls.

Perhaps most interesting is the lack of any

interaction with existing state registration files

in those states that have them. A number of

observers have expressed concern over the cost of

reprogramming to interface the separate computers handling driver's licenses and voter registration files. That has not been an issue in the

states which have motor voter systems because

only two of them reported any conversion or any

interface between the systems. In every system

there is a manual transfer of a physical document.

The potential for computer interaction has not

been fully developed, and a number of systems

are working quite well without it.

Elements of Motor Voter Systems

No two states have identical motor voter systems. Indeed, there is some variation of practice

even within states. The following section analyzes motor voter systems according to seven

principal elements: methods of notifying prospective applicants, application forms, roles of

staff in driver's license offices, legal requirements

affecting the role of staff, responsibilities for

transferring completed applications from the

driver's license office to the voter registration

office, special activities undertaken by registrars,

and renewals. Each element has several possible

variations, and the way in which these variations

are combined defines a motor voter system.

Notification

Because applicants will not necessarily have

come to the driver's license office knowing that

they can also register to vote, each motor voter

system has some means of informing them. There

are three methods in use: passive, active, and

automatic.

• Passive. The passive method relies on signs

posted in the office to inform voters that they may

register to vote. It is always used in conjunction

with separate application forms, rather than

combined forms. The New Mexico system offers

an example. Signs are posted in each district

office of the Department of Motor Vehicles. The

applicant must request a form from an official in
the office. (See Exhibit 1.) At least in the

jurisdictions surveyed, the applicant and the official complete the form on the spot. That is, the

official types in information provided by the applicant, and the applicant checks the information

and signs the form. The motor vehicle office

takes responsibility for sending the completed

form to the appropriate county clerk.

The advantage of the passive system is ease of

initial implementation. Each office continues to

use its own forms and most of its former procedures. The chief disadvantage of the system is

that it relies for its effectiveness upon the public

to read, understand, and act upon the signs.

Then, to the extent that the public does attempt

to use the system, it will impose some demands

upon staff in the driver's license office. If the staff

types the form for the applicant, or even checks it

for accuracy, there is an obvious investment of

time. Conversely, without such checking the

system loses an important quality control. Moreover, in a busy office if the voter has to obtain the

form, get out of line to complete it, and then stand

in line to have it checked, much of the convenience

of motor voter registration will be lost. Finally,

every motor voter system, including the passive

system, creates some expectation on the part of

the applicant that the public official working in

the office will be able and willing to answer

questions about voting. Systems vary in the way

in which staff are instructed to respond to questions. (This issue is covered more fully under

"Role of Staff' below.) A passive system imposes

some demands on office staff. The chief savings

seem to come, not in processing time per voter,

but in start-up costs and in smaller numbers of

applicants who take advantage of this system

compared with other systems.

• Active. In active notification systems the

driver's license offices take a proactive role by

asking their clients, individually, whether they

wish to register to vote or change their registration. Those who respond affirmatively are given

a separate voter registration form to complete.

Michigan's system, the first motor voter program

in the nation, fits this category and serves as a

useful illustration. The Secretary of State has

responsibility for the issuing of driver's licenses.

Staff in each of the 179 Secretary of State Branch

Offices are supposed to offer voter registration as

part of each transaction. Persons who wish to

register receive the application pictured in Exhibit 2. They complete it in the presence of a staff

member, who also signs the application, thereby

satisfying Michigan's requirement for registration in person.

The obvious advantage of an active system

over a passive one is that, if it is properly implemented, it insures that each client in the office

recognizes the opportunity to register. And the

person who notifies the applicant also provides

the application form and any directions needed.

Michigan adds another step by including a

voter registration application in the driver's license renewal notice, which is mailed to each

resident forty-five days before her or his license

expires. The recipient must still appear in person

to make a change in voter registration, but the

application serves as an additional reminder and,

if the applicant brings in a completed application,

it is simply affixed to the form shown in Exhibit

2 so that the applicant does not have to repeat the

same information.

The principal disadvantage of this system is

that it relies upon personnel in the driver's license offices to make it work. Voter registration

officials in several of the states using such systems complain that the staff do not always ask.

Reasons suggested include lack of training, indifference or even hostility to the goals of the program, and the extra work required. Assisting the

applicant and signing the form takes a little time,

but a little time per client in a busy office can add

to a lot. When there is a line waiting, the clerk

must take time from the primary function of the

office (driver's licenses) to serve the primary

function of another office (voter registration).

Finally, a clerk who is unsure of what to do and is
anxious about the consequences of an error can

avoid the problem by simply not asking the question.

States have used several techniques to combat

the problem of staff non-compliance. One is

training, making sure that the staff know what is

to be done and how to do it. Where there is a high

turnover or transfer rate among driver's license

staff, training must be repeated often. Obviously,

the degree of support exhibited by the state driver's

license agency is very important. Oversight is

vital in this regard. Michigan has an ideal.situation in that the author and chief proponent of the

program has line authority over the personnel

who issue driver's licenses. His office makes clear

the policy that this is an important program for

agency personnel. And it monitors compliance by

comparing the number of address changes for

driver's licenses and voter registration received

from each office. If the system is working properly, these figures should be close. If they are not,

the state office makes an inquiry.

Another technique is the use of deputy registrars in the driver's license offices. The local

registrar deputizes at least one clerk in each

office. This step is often taken as a requirement

of state law (see "Legal Requirements," below),

but it also establishes a direct link between the

registrar and the implementing personnel in the

driver's license office. Moreover, people who

volunteer for the position will usually be favorable to the goals of the program. A disadvantage

of this approach is that, if only one or two people

are deputized in an office, the program may falter

if these people are absent or even very busy.

• Automatic. Automatic systems place a question on the driver's license application to notify

the applicant that he or she may register to vote,

using a separate form. The Arizona Amended

Motor Voter Form (Exhibit 3) illustrates the

driver's license application in such a system.

Those who respond affirmatively proceed to apply for registration much as they would in other

systems using separate forms.

An obvious advantage of the automatic system

is that it does not depend upon office personnel to

notify the voter. Indeed, when properly implemented, it forces the applicant to make a written

response to the question. On the other hand, the

system does require redesigning and printing of

driver's license applications. More importantly,

it, too, is not absolutely foolproof. Some people

have checked "yes" and assumed that they would

be registered without further action on their part.

This problem can be avoided by having the office

staff check the response to the voter registration

question and advise the applicants how to proceed.

But relying on staff to do so undermines some of

the advantage of the automatic system over the

active system.

Combined forms are also automatic and, in this

case, the request for voter information is on the

same form. (See Figure 2.) Thus it seems even

more unlikely that the prospective voters will

either miss the notice or mistakenly believe that

they have registered simply by checking a box.

Application Forms

There are three types of motor voter application

forms: separate, combined, and computer assisted. The first two of these are completed

manually. One is physically separate from the

driver's license application and the other is

combined on the same form with the driver's

licens application. With the third type most of

the voter information is printed by a computer on

a form or transferred directly in machine readable

form. These types have some important similarities and differences which affect the way in

which motor voter programs work.

All motor voter systems, including those that

are computer assisted, use manual forms to record

the necessary information and the voter's signature. The information requirements vary as a

function of state law. The National Clearinghouse

on Election Administration has published a

summary of these requirements for each state

and the District of Columbia. (Kimberling, 1990)
In every system studied for this report the voter

registration office receives a form with an original

signature. This point is very important for law

enforcement officials investigating voter fraud

cases. The ways in which the forms capture the

necessary information and original signature vary

from state to state. The primary considerations

involved in the design of forms seem to be compatibility with the existing forms used by registration offices or driver licensing offices and with the

system for transferring forms (individual mail,

bulk mail, etc).

A special problem arises for a state that does

not already have a standard registration form in

use throughout the state at the time that the

motor voter system is adopted. The problem

stems from the inconsistency of jurisdictions between voter registration and driver licensing offices. A driver's license office can typically serve

anyone in the state. People may visit a driver

licensing office near their place of employment or

where they go to school, for example, in a different

county or township from their voting residence.

It is not practical for the driver's license office to

maintain voter registration forms for every county

in the state, so some voters will use a registration

form that is different from the one used in their

county.

The effects of the problem become apparent

when the application reaches the voter's home

jurisdiction. The issue is usually not one of

eligibility since most applications will contain the

essential information in one place or another. It

is, rather, one of fitting an outsized form into the

file system. The jurisdiction's application form

was designed to fit the storage system, or vice

versa. The form from another county does not fit,

but it has to be kept because it contains the voter's

original signature.

Cook County, Illinois, provides an example. It

has over 1,000,000 registered voters outside of

the City of Chicago. The cards containing the

voters' signatures must be delivered to the polls

on election day. (Illinois is one of eighteen states

that require signature verification at the polling

place.) The County Clerk's office organizes the

cards within separate binders for the different

precincts to which they must be delivered. New

cards must be placed in their proper alphabetical

order within the binders so that poll workers can

locate them quickly during the rush of business

on election day. Thus, Cook County has a substantial sunk cost in its present system. Cook

County and the other election jurisdictions of

Illinois may have to deal with this issue soon

since they do not share a standard registration

form and the legislature has passed a motor voter

bill (which the governor had not acted on at the

time of this report).

Note that the Illinois example illustrates a

combination of two distinct conditions that affect

the implementation of motor voter programs.

One is the lack of uniformity in the size and shape

of voter registration applications among local

jurisdictions. The other is the legal requirement

to have documents containing the voters' original

signatures at the polling places. A state can have

one problem without the other. Like most problems these are easier to solve in isolation than in

combination.

If nonuniformity is the only issue, then the

problem is one of integrating motor voter forms

with the existing physical storage and retrieval

systems of the local jurisdictions. The magnitude

of this task will vary with the size of the jurisdiction. Clearly, the sunk cost in filing cabinets

and the importance of strict procedures will be

much greater in a jurisdiction having hundreds of

thousands of registrants than in one which has a

few thousand.

Local procedures also affect the task. Many

jurisdictions that do not require signature verification at the polling place routinely transfer the

information from all application cards to some

other medium. Most large and many small jurisdictions use computers to store, sort, retrieve,

and print the voter registration information as

needed. If necessary, a field can be added to

computer records to indicate that the original

application came through the motor voter pro9
gram and is stored in a different file from the

regular applications. (Such a field would also be

useful in measuring the impact of the motor voter

program. See "Motor Voter Measurements," below.) Many offices without computers still routinely type registration information onto new

cards, which they use in their normal operations

while storing the original for safekeeping. In

these cases the impact of a differently sized or

shaped form associated with a motor voter program is not great.

If, on the other hand, the regular voter registration forms are uniform in all local jurisdictions

of a state, it is possible to simply adopt a motor

voter application of the same size and shape.

Such applications will fit the existing files of all

jurisdictions and can be sent to the polling places

in the same manner as regular applications where

signature verification is required. This was the

approach taken by Nevada, which standardized

its voter affidavits before adopting motor voter.

The two considerations discussed here -

nonuniformity of local registration forms and the

requirement for signature verification at the polls

- constrain, but do not necessarily determine, the

type of form chosen for a motor voter program.

Other issues are involved and each type has

advantages and disadvantages, as described below.

• Separate forms. In most motor voter systems the voter registration application and the

driver license application are printed on separate

forms. The registration application may be the

same one that is used in the voter registration

office or it may be a different form designed for

statewide use, especially where the local jurisdictions do not use a standard form. Exhibit 4

displays the Ohio form, which is used for both

motor voter and mail registration. Note that the

forms are self-mailing. Applicants may mail

them to the Secretary of State for further distribution, take them to their local board of elections,

or leave them at the driver's license office to be

picked up by the local board of elections.

Like Illinois, Ohio requires election officials to

send cards containing the voters' original signatures to the polling place for signature verification on election day. Nancy Van Meter, Director

of the Ashland County Board of Elections, described the way in which they make the system

work in her county. The nearest driver's license

office is the Ashland Auto Club (AAA), a private

organization that works on contract with the

state of Ohio. Her office supplies the auto club

with Ashland County voter registration forms

(Exhibit 5), which the club then provides to county

residents who need them. These applications fit

the county's binders and require no special processing when they reach the election board. On

the other hand, the auto club and similar organizations around the state give the state form

(Exhibit 4) to motor voter applicants who reside

in other counties. When applications using the

state forms come in to the Board of Elections, the

staff must copy the information to an Ashland

County form and then cut out and paste the

original signature to that form. This is a tedious

process, but it allows the Board to accommodate

the motor voter forms within its existing system.

The fact that most motor voter applications use

the county form greatly reduces the burden.

The State of Michigan also uses separate forms

for motor voter applications and has encountered

the same compatibility problem. Its solution was

to print the motor voter application on one side of

heavy stock paper and to put adhesive and a peeloff backing on the other side (see Exhibit 2). The

card is perforated along the dotted lines so that it

can be easily divided into sections. When the

backing is removed, the sections can be stuck onto

appropriately sized forms at each local voter

registration office. This approach makes transferring the information and the original signature easy, although it does increase the cost of the

forms. The Secretary of State's office recently

paid $45,000 for 850,000 forms, a price of just over

five cents per copy.

A number of other jurisdictions use separate

forms as well. This type of form has several

advantages and disadvantages. It appears to be

the least expensive option in terms of printing or

10
start-up costs. It does not require a change in the

existing driver's license applications, although

some jurisdictions add a question to the driver's

license form asking whether the applicant wishes

to register to vote. (This point is discussed under

"Notification," below.) Election officials are free

to adopt an existing application or to design a new

one.

There are disadvantages, as well. Separate

forms require more work on the part of the voter,

who must manually fill in much of the same

information already provided on the-driver license application. In most cases this is not a

critical problem, as the success of some systems

using separate forms will attest. Nevertheless,

a few officials in driver licensing offices suggested

that they lose some potential applicants as a

result. The scenario they present is a large, busy

office in which the applicant has already been

waiting for some time. This is, of course, a

subjective evaluation that addresses the reaction

of a relatively small number of potential applicants. The available evidence indicates a generally

positive reaction on the part of potential voters to

a well implemented motor voter program using

separate forms. (See "Motor Voter Measurements," below.)

A second problem with separate forms is that

they are not well integrated into the organizational routines of the driver licensing office. This

is the flip side of the ease-of-implementation

advantage. As will be discussed in the following

section, separate forms always require some independent means of notifying the prospective

applicant of the opportunity to register. Some

election officials interviewed for this project complained that the driver's license personnel did not

always ask clients if they wished to register. This

possibility is understandable, especially in large,

busy offices. Clerks must take time from a

mission for which they were hired and trained in

order to perform a job they consider to be the work

of another agency. And there is clear evidence of

wholesale non-implementation in some cases.

(See "Motor Voter Measurements" in this report.)

On the other hand, there are ways to deal with

this problem and some of the most successful

systems in the country use separate forms. To

preview a conclusion of this report: the success of

motor voter programs using separate forms is

more dependent upon the attitude and effort of

implementing personnel than are programs using other (combined or computer-assisted) forms.

• Combined forms, as the name implies, put

both the driver's license and voter registration

applications on a single document. There are two

types of combined forms - tearoff and duplicate.

Tearoff forms. This type of form consists of two

applications printed on the same sheet or card,

which is perforated for easy separation. Iowa

uses a tearoff form, pictured in Exhibit 6. In this

case the voter application is attached to the written test for a driver license. The voter registration

section is the top portion of the form. The tearoff

combined form is one step removed from the

separate form in that the driver's license and

voter registration applications are attached. This

step is important because it guarantees that the

voter registration process will be integrated with

the routines of the driver licensing office. Notification of the prospective applicant is automatic.

On the other hand, the applicant must still complete all necessary information on each form. In

this respect the tearoff combined form is like the

separate form. (Minnesota is another state with

experience using a tearoff form; this year they

have changed to a carbon duplicate form.) Combining applications, either as tearoff or duplicates, adds an additional constraint to the design

of the forms. They must meet the needs of the

driver licensing organization as well. This point

will be explored more fully after the presentation

of the duplicate combined forms below.

Duplicate forms. This type of form goes one

step further than the tearoff form. It is designed

to copy information from one application to another so that the voter does not have to write the

same information twice. Two jurisdictions use

duplicate combined forms, Colorado and Washington, D.C.

11
The Washington, D.C., form uses pressure sensitive paper to make a copy of part of the combined application. Exhibit 7 displays the top

sheet of the combined form. This is the application for a motor vehicle operator's permit. It

overlays the second sheet, which is the voter

registration application. Because the first sheet

is shorter, the lower sections of the second sheet

(Sections 7 through 9) are visible to the applicant.

Exhibit 8 illustrates. The first sheet is pressure

sensitive so that the needed information from the

top form copies onto the second. Exhibit 9 shows

the entire voter application form. When it is

completed, Sections 1 through 3 and Section 6

will contain information duplicated from the

driver's license application. Sections 7 through 9

will contain original information, including an

original signature. When the forms are separated, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles receives top

sheet (Exhibit 7) and the Board of Elections

receives the bottom sheet (Exhibit 9).

Note that the information captured in Sections

1,2, and 3 of this form goes to both agencies. The

only additional information required for voter

registration is the individual's party, last voter

registration address, signature, date, and daytime

telephone number. Three features of this form

deserve special attention here. First, note that

Section 2 asks for "Current Residence (Street

Address)." This is an important feature from the

point of view of election officials who must assign

voters to districts based upon the geographic

location of their residences. Driver licensing

agencies will often accept a commercial address

or a post office box, so it is important that the form

is specific on this issue.

Second, the form asks for a positive declaration

that the individual meets the qualifications for

voting. One does not have to be a U.S. citizen, for

example, to get a driver license. TheD.C. Director

of Elections, Emmett Fremaux, points out that he

gets an additional check on citizenship from the

information contained in the box labeled "FOR

BMVS USE ONLY" in the upper right corner of

the form. If the applicant did not use a U.S. birth

certificate or naturalization papers to establish

age, that fact could trigger an inquiry into citizenship status for voting purposes.

Finally, the bottom sheet of the combined form

is printed on heavy stock paper so that it can be

used as a file copy. The District of Columbia does

not require signature verification at the polling

place, so sending the forms there is not an issue.

This example does show, however, thata combined

form can be designed to meet physical filing and

retrieval needs of a jurisdiction.

Colorado did require signature verification at

the time that it adopted a combined-form motor

voter system. Its form is smaller and does not

produce a heavy-stock copy (Exhibit 10). The

solution for the first year of operation was to

paste the motor voter application onto the regular application, which was of the right size and

shape for the binders used in the polling places.

Shortly thereafter Colorado dropped the requirement for original signatures at the polling

place.

The advantages of the combined form are

several. First, the voter registration process is

completely integrated into the operating routines

of the office and notification of the applicant is

automatic. There is no way for an applicant to

complete a motor vehicle transaction without

learning that he or she may also apply for voter

registration. Second, the combined form does not

require any redundant information on the part of

the voter. Finally, the combined form may produce some useful information that is not normally

captured by voter registration applications.

The disadvantages of the combined form are

the amount of coordination needed to initiate the

program and the continuing costs of printing.

Driver's license and election officials must together

design a form that meets the needs of both

agencies. This step will take time and a willingness

to cooperate on both parts. The driver licensing

agency may have substantial sunk costs in its

own forms and the operating procedures built

around them. Change will require some adjust12
ment on their part. Costs can be offset and

resistance can be overcome, but they must be

recognized as important factors in motor voter

implementation. Of course, change can bring

benefits as well as costs. The head of the driver

licensing agency in the District was initially

concerned that motor voter would increase the

cost of forms and slow down operations in the

agency. Yet in designing the new motor voter

form the Bureau of Motor Vehicles was able to

combine three of its existing forms into the new

application, thereby streamlining its own operations. There were delays during the initial

implementation of the program (ten to fifteen

minutes longer waits than usual), but the process

is now faster than before.

Duplicate combined forms do cost more. At six

cents per copy the individual forms are not much

more expensive than Michigan's peel-off form.

However, Michigan's separate forms are used

only for motor voter transactions while the D.C.

combined forms are used for voter registration,

operator permits, learner permits, identification

cards, organ donor designations, and address

changes on the above. Thus the increased cost of

the form is multiplied by the greater number of

transactions in which it is used. And as Leroy

Bennett of the D.C. driver's license office pointed

out, forms with a lot of white space are sometimes

wasted by people who are looking to write notes or

give their children something to draw on while

they wait. Emmett Fremaux, Executive Director

of the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, estimates

the increased expense attributable to motor voter

as three cents per form. A total usage rate of

180,000 forms per year for 30,000 motor voter

applications produces a cost attributable to motor

voter of $.18 per completed application. This

price is, for his jurisdiction, considerably less

than that of other forms of voter outreach.

(Fremaux, 1991)

Colorado recently switched from pressure

sensitive forms to carbon paper in order to reduce

costs. A batch of 200,000 new forms cost $5,000,

for a price of $.025 per copy. This is the price of an

individual form, more comparable to the District

cost of $.06 per copy than to the $.18 per completed application. The D.C. form is larger, more

complicated, and pressure sensitive, hence the

greater cost. Yet since the design of the forms

affects numerous other costs in the program (personnel, transportation, storage, etc.), these costs

do not represent net efficiencies of one program

over another. For example, Colorado added

personnel to its motor vehicle offices and D.C. did

not. Different programs absorb costs in different

ways. Still, these figures are useful benchmarks

for other jurisdictions considering motor voter

programs.

• Computer assisted applications. Three

states—Montana, Oregon, and Washington—

have computer assisted application procedures.

All of them capture an applicant's driver license

information in a local computer, either from a

manually completed application form or by the

applicant telling it to an official at the computer.

For renewals this information should already be

in the computer. The Oregon and Montana systems use the computer to print out most of the

needed information on the voter registration card,

which is attached to the driver's license "camera

card." Washington uses a separate form to capture an original signature for the registrars' files,

but has electronic transfer of information between driver's license and voter registration

systems.

Exhibit 11 displays the Oregon form. This is

the camera card, a computer generated card that

is used with the applicant's picture to make up

the actual driver's license. The personal information that will appear on the driver's license is

printed from the computer onto the middle section of the card. The applicant's name, address,

date of birth, mother's maiden name, and place of

birth are printed on the voter registration application. If the applicant does not wish to register

or change registration, the official tears off the

last section and places it in a designated container

at the work station. Those who receive the

registration card review it, add information as

13
necessary, and sign it. In this way the Oregon

system uses the computer to avoid requiring

redundant information from the voter whereas

combined forms use the pressure sensitive paper

or carbon copies to accomplish the same purpose.

The state of Washington uses a different procedure. The driver's license applicant who wishes

to register to vote does not receive a printout.

Instead, the driver licensing official simply keys

a "yes" button to a response on a computer screen,

thereby flagging the record for copying and

transfer to the Secretary of State's office. The

applicant receives a separate form (Exhibit 12).

The applicant completes the form by printing

her or his name in block 6 and signing in the two

spaces provided. The applicant is supposed to

fill in any other information that is not included

in the driver's license record. These forms and

the electronically coded data on the applicants

go to the Secretary of State's office, where a

specially designated motor voter staff match them

and sort them by county for transfer to the appropriate local election officials. The voter information is currently sent on printouts, although

the state may develop procedures to transfer it

in machine readable form to the counties.

This is a complex system which has experienced some start-up problems, as one might expect. The program began in January of 1992.

Sometimes signature cards do not match the

names on the printout, or there are multiple

matches because people have the same name and

the staff cannot immediately determine which

signature goes with which record. The Secretary

of State's staff tries to reconcile these difficulties.

If it cannot, it sends a report to the counties for

their help. This example illustrates an important

point for jurisdictions that are considering adopting or changing motor voter systems. Any new

program is likely to encounter a shakedown period. What appears most impressive from site

visits to the states of Washington and Oregon is

that they reduced the number of such difficulties

through careful planning and that the officials

concerned are working through the problems in

an orderly fashion.

All of the computer assisted systems, like the

combined systems, save the voter the trouble

filling in the same information twice. This advantage has a downside. Some voters do not take

the trouble to enter additional information even

when it is needed. This problem seems to occur

most often with addresses. Some people put post

office boxes or commercial addresses on driver's

license applications and they fail to fill in the

blank on the voter registration card that asks for

residence address. Registration officials in

Washington and Oregon pointed out this problem,

but none characterized it as being a major problem.

As is also true with the combined form, the

start-up costs are greater than with separate

forms. In this case the driver's license computers

have to be reprogrammed. Oregon estimated a

cost of $4900 for this step. In the Oregon system,

the voter application form had to be compatible

with the driver's license form, but the marginal

cost of the addition was small, an estimated

$2143 in the first year of operation. The Washington and Montana forms are separate. This

choice eases the design constraints and also means

that forms are not wasted when driver's license

applicants do not need or wish to register. On the

other hand, the applicant does not see and verify

the voter registration information.

Legal Requirements

Two common legal requirements affect the

way in which motor voter operates: deputy registrars and registration in person. Some states'

election laws require that all applications for

voter registration be administered by registrars

or deputy registrars, and some of these states

have carried this rule over into their motor voter

systems by providing that driver licensing staff

be deputized. A problem arises where

deputization is done by a local registrar or county

clerk and the jurisdiction of the deputy is, by

14
law, the same as that of the person deputizing.

Because the jurisdiction of the driver's license

office is normally statewide, this requirement

can limit the effect of motor voter and can cause

much confusion as people try to register in offices

outside their voting jurisdiction. A few states

have dealt with this problem by providing in the

enabling legislation that any employee of the

motor vehicle or driver's license department has

authority to take registration statewide. If the

statute is silent on this issue, existing voter

registration requirements will generally govern.

Many states require that all applicants, except

for the disabled and those temporarily out of the

jurisdiction, register in person. This requirement

has actually been a stimulus for motor voter,

which provides for registration in person before

an employee of the state. Registration in person,

coupled with a very decentralized registration

system, was a reason for the creation of the first

motor voter system, according to Michigan Secretary of State Richard H. Austin, who pioneered

the system. Michigan has 269 cities and 1242

townships. Many people had difficulty discovering where they could go to register, and the fact

that some of the small offices kept irregular hours

compounded the problem. The motor voter system allowed a citizen to apply in any driver's

license office in the state during regular business

hours and, in many offices, on Saturday as well.

Role of the Staff in

Driver's License Office

The preceding discussion has frequently alluded to the staff in the driver's license office.

This section summarizes the various duties which

should be considered in the design of a motor

voter system.

• Notification. The active system of voter

notification depends for its success upon the staff

to inform voters of their opportunity to register.

Other systems are less dependent.

• Questions. Upon learning that they may

apply for voter registration in the driver's license

office, many people will assume that the staff are

both able and obligated to answer all manner of

questions about elections. Agency officials will

have to consider what information the staff should

provide and how it should be provided. Too little

information can result in improper registrations;

too much takes time away from other duties and

increases the chances of conflict with information

disseminated by regular election officials such as

the local registrar. Oregon provides staff with a

pamphlet to give to applicants. The pamphlet

answers some questions and tells applicants to

direct all other questions to their county clerk's

office. This system seems to accomplish its purpose, although it produces some frustration within

the Department of Motor Vehicles, which strives

to imbue staff with a strong service orientation

yet must tell them to limit their responses on

election issues.

• Assistance. Staff may be called upon to

provide assistance in completing forms for handicapped or illiterate applicants. In addition, some

registration offices have complained about illegible handwriting and have requested motor voter

staff to check the forms submitted at their offices.

Registrars want the problem corrected at the

source, whenever possible, because it is easier to

ask questions of the applicant standing in the

office than it is to telephone or mail a question

after the fact, assuming that the registrars can

even identify the applicant from an illegible form.

This problem is not unique to motor voter; it can

occur with deputy registrars and mail registration as well. The principal issue here is time. In

some jurisdictions the staff provide assistance to

all applicants by typing or printing the application. Systems which use the computer-assisted,

tear-off combined form are best for minimizing

this problem. Staff make the required computer

entries for the driver's license system while the

applicant is in the office and then print out both

the driver's license and the voter registration

information for the applicant to check before

signing.

• Collecting forms. In most systems applicants submit the completed voter registration

15
forms to the driver licensing staff, who collect

them for transfer to the appropriate registration

officials. (Some systems give the applicant the

option of mailing the form directly.) The various

means of transferring forms are discussed in the

following section.

Transfer Responsibilities.

Who transfers the completed applications from

the driver's license office to the appropriate voter

registration office? In some jurisdictions, the

voter takes responsibility for mailing or delivering the completed form, but usually the driver's

license office initiates the transfer. The task is

more complicated than it might seem at first

glance because the jurisdiction of the driver's

license office will rarely coincide with that of a

voter registration office. So applications must be

sorted by voting jurisdiction, and in many cases

the applicant will not know the appropriate destination.

The most common procedure is for the driver's

license office to send all completed applications to

the nearest voter registration office, which then

forwards applications to other voter registration

offices as necessary. Oregon is an example. In

some cases the driver's license office will do an

initial sort and send applications to several nearby

voter registration offices with which the staff are

familiar. The registration offices spend the time

to look up obscure addresses and forward applications to other offices as necessary. In some

states the driver's license offices send the applications to the chief election officer of the state,

who then redistributes them to the appropriate

local registration offices. North Carolina follows

this pattern.

The Washington system transfers the signed

voter registration cards by mail and the voter

information in machine readable form (tapes,

etc.) to the Department of Licensing, which then

transfers from its computer to the one used by the

Secretary of State. The motor voter staff within

the Secretary of State's office matches the signature cards with the computer data, writes county

codes on the cards, and sends the cards and the

printouts to the counties for entry into their

system.

Finally, there are various combinations. In

Michigan, where registration records are maintained by 1511 separate jurisdictions, driver's

license offices forward applications and voter

updates once a month. They send applications for

townships or cities within the county where the

driver's license office is located directly to the

appropriate clerk. For applicants living in neighboring counties, they send them to the county

clerk, who redistributes them to the appropriate

township or city clerk. They send all other

applications to the Secretary of State's Elections

Division in Lansing for redistribution. As the

registration deadline for an election approaches,

the Branch Offices transfer the forms daily instead of monthly.

As the Michigan example illustrates, the most

suitable mechanism will depend upon the circumstances of the state in question. The way in

which the state arranges its transfer procedures

will affect two related issues: safeguard procedures and the close of registration before elections.

• Safeguard procedures. When an application is handled by two or three different organizations, tracking is both more difficult and more

important than in a single office. What happens

if a file is lost between the motor voter office and

the registration office? There are several possible

ways to discover the problem or to mitigate its

effect on the voter.

The North Carolina system appears to be the

most thorough. Every month the Department of

Motor Vehicles provides the State Board of Elections with a computer-printed Voter Transaction

List sorted by the client's county of residence.

This list contains the name, address, date of

birth, and date of the transaction for each person

who conducted a transaction in any driver's license

office of the state. The State Board of Elections

sends each county its portion of the list with the

following directions:

16
You are to compare the names listed

thereon for accuracy and completeness.

Should there be a name shown for which

your office has no voter registration application or change of address record your board

is directed to contact these people and provide an opportunity for them to be properly

registered to vote or make whatever change

they intended.

This is obviously a strong system, and most

states do less. In several jurisdictions the motor

voter office sends a separate notice of the number

of forms in each shipment to a voter registration

office. The voter registration office may repeat

that process for any forms that it forwards to

other voter registration offices. This step alerts

the receiving office if any forms fail to arrive.

Most voter registration offices complete the loop

by sending out voter identification cards or other

notices to successful applicants and rejection

letters to any who were unsuccessful. Thus, an

alert applicant might notice if he or she failed to

receive a card within a reasonable period of time.

Finally, most systems give the applicants a receipt

at the motor voter office so that they can establish

the fact that they attempted to register.

• Close of registration. The concern with the

close of registration is that voters may apply at

the motor voter office before the deadline but

their files will not reach the registration office

before the deadline. The problem is not as great

as it might seem because the motor voter system

tends to smooth out the flow of applications

throughout the year, thereby avoiding the rush

just before elections. (See discussion under "Effects," below.) Nevertheless, some individuals

will still register at the last possible moment and

their rights to vote must be protected.

Some states use the date that the application is

received in a motor voter office for determining

whether the deadline has been met. The problem

for these states is that valid applications may not

arrive at the registration office in time for officials there to put the names on the list of registered voters which is sent to the polling place.

The solution adopted by most of these states is to

provide a receipt at the motor voter office and to

allow people to vote upon presentation of that

receipt at the polling place.

Other states use the date that the application

is received in the voter registration office for

determining whether the deadline has been met.

Here the problem is to insure an expeditious

transfer of forms between the motor voter offices

and the voter registration offices. In Oregon, for

example, the county clerks take responsibility for

picking up forms at the Bureau of Motor Vehicle

offices on the last day of registration.

Special Activities in Voter

Registration Offices

Once the application arrives in the voter registration office, it can be treated like any other

application that is received from outside the office (through deputy registrars, etc).

• Staff will need to determine whether the new

registration duplicates an existing one. Some

voters will not remember whether they are registered or whether their registration is current and

they may inadvertently re-register. This step is

not difficult since the duplication will normally be

revealed in the process of filing the registration

card.

• They will need to check addresses to determine

whether the application has been sent to the

proper jurisdiction. This is not an onerous step

because they will be familiar with most addressees in their jurisdiction and will have to check in

any case to make a precinct assignment.

• In most jurisdictions, the staff will also notify

the voter of acceptance and precinct assignment

or provide the reasons for rejection along with

instructions for correcting the problem.

• In some jurisdictions the staff will have to

prepare a registration card for the voter because

the application is not in a form for filing. This can

be an issue where combined forms are used and

17
should be addressed in negotiations between voter

registration and driver's license offices. The D.C.

system, for example, puts the registration application on the bottom sheet of a multi-page, pressure sensitive form. The bottom sheet is printed

on heavier stock than the others so that it can be

used as a file card. In some cases the applications

are not uniform statewide, so no single motor

voter form would fit all local needs. But the form

that contains the original signature must still be

maintained as part of the record. Michigan developed the peel-off system so that the signature can

be affixed to ocally designed registration cards.

Some jurisdictions attach the entire motor voter

form to another card.

Renewals

The preceding list of elements describes the

motor voter registration process associated with

initial driver licensing. The procedure may or

may not be the same when people renew driver's

licenses. This issue is important because it affects the number of opportunities that motor

voter has to capture new voter registrants. If it is

limited to initial licenses, the opportunities will

be severely constrained. As Figure 2 illustrated,

half of the population obtains driver licenses

before the age of 18. The Iowa combined system

is limited in this way because the voter registration

application is printed on the written test that

people take before obtaining initial driver's licenses in that state. The license renewal process

is paperless, so there is no automatic opportunity

to capture new registrants on the combined form.

Staff do have postcards for mail registration that

they are to make available for renewals. Oregon,

on the other hand, mails voter registration applications along with driver's license renewal

notices. This solution is possible there because

Oregon also has mail registration. Michigan

sends a voter registration card with the renewal

notice, and has recently changed its law so that

the Secretary of State can receive registration

applications in the mail and forward them to the

appropriate local jurisdictions.

Measuring Motor Voter

Does motor voter work? A short answer is that

we cannot know yet because the existing systems

are quite new, because so many factors can affect

the result, and because most jurisdictions do not

have data that would allow them to track it

through time or to compare results across systems. Nevertheless, policy makers are currently

deciding on new systems, changing the design of

old ones, and looking carefully at funding levels

for both. Events will not wait for research. This

section describes the available evidence in order

to suggest some tentative conclusions and to

promote a discussion within the election community of the type of information it needs to have

available.

What do we want motor voter to do? We have

seen that there are a variety of systems. There

are also a number of possible goals: showing the

public that the government is trying to do something about participation rates, making registration more convenient for people who would register even without the system, providing a registration opportunity for many people who would not

otherwise register, improving the accuracy and

timeliness of voter files, increasing registration

rates, and increasing voter turnout. Information

needs vary with goals.

Before a program can begin to accomplish any

of its goals it must be put into place. This

seemingly trite statement directs our attention to

what may be the most important factor in motor

voter success, implementation. A large body of

literature in political science and public administration amply documents the fact that simply

passing a law does not insure that the desired

activity will take place. The work is done, or left

undone, by people in the field who must allocate

scarce resources among competing demands and

solve the myriad practical problems unanticipated

by the original mandate. Scholars differentiate

between implementation, referring to what those

charged with administering a program actually

do, and impact, referring to the result of those

18
activities. A program can be implemented without having the desired impact, but it cannot have

an impact without being implemented.

Michigan and North Carolina

Two examples illustrate this point. Among the

four earliest states to adopt motor voter, Michigan (1975) and North Carolina (1984) are the only

two with transaction data from the beginnings of

their programs to the present. "Transactions"

simply refers to the number of motor voter forms

filled out in driver licensing offices and forwarded

to registration authorities. The prescribed activities in the Michigan and North Carolina programs are similar. In both states the driver's

license and voter registration applications are

printed on separate forms. Both relied on driver

licensing staff to notify applicants of their opportunity to register until 1989, when North

Carolina put a voter registration question on the

driver's license form.

Yet their experiences with motor voter could

hardly be more divergent. Figure 3 displays the

raw transaction rates from these two states from

the beginning of each program through 1991. The

heights of the two lines are quite different, partially because these are raw figures and Michigan's

population is larger than North Carolina's. The

important characteristic here is the shape of the

lines. Note that Michigan started the program in

1975 with 128,633 transactions. It grew rapidly

to 661,736 in 1976 and varied from year to year

thereafter around an overall pattern of slow

growth. North Carolina began with 60,507

transactions in 1984 and then dropped to a few

thousand per year until 1989, when the number

increased again.

What happened? The difference appears to lie

in implementation. Richard Austin, Michigan's

Secretary of State, pioneered the motor voter

concept. He has been in office throughout the

history of the program and Michigan is one of the

few states in which the Secretary of State is in

charge of driver licensing. Thus, there has always been strong support at the head of the

agency where the transactions took place. The

North Carolina experience was different. There

the driver's license agency was the recipient of a

mandate, not the initiator. When the program

began, the legislature and the governor who had

passed and signed the bill were in office and of the

same party, but the governorship changed party

the following year. Priorities changed and without active support the program languished. More

recently an agreement between the State Board

of Elections and the Driver License Section of the

Division of Motor Vehicles has produced a much

more vigorous implementation, as the steep rise

in transaction rates attests. Given this history, it

is reasonable to attribute the different transaction patterns to implementation differences rather

than design (impact) differences.

These two cases support several generalizations. First, the Michigan experience shows that

an active motor voter program can produce results, at least in the form of transactions at the

driver's license offices. Second, the irregular

pattern traced by Michigan's transactions can

serve as a useful benchmark for motor voter

programs of the same design and perhaps for

those of other designs as well. The sharp increase

during the first two years suggests an organizational learning curve as the various branch offices assimilated the new procedure. The irregular pattern afterwards suggests that even well

implemented programs will experience a good bit

of yearly variation. Yet there is also a pattern to

the variation. After the second year of the program every even-numbered year brought an increase and every odd-numbered year brought a

decline. This pattern obviously fits the election

cycle even to the point of the highest rates falling

on presidential years. It suggests that motor

voter programs, like regular registration programs, are sensitive to the biennial election cycle,

though perhaps not to the same degree.

The number of transactions is not an ideal

measure of implementation. It reflects both the

activity of the office staff (implementation) and

19
the response of the clients in the office (impact).

Yet it is a more direct measure than is a state's

registration rate (registrants as a percentage of

voting aged population), which reflects the impact

of motor voter plus all other sources of registration. The two figures can best be used in tandem,

each helping in the interpretation of the other.

An increase in transactions will not necessarily

result in an increase in registration. Consider the

hypothetical case in which all the transactions

were changes, duplicates, ineligibles, etc., or,

more likely, if the motor voter program simply

were to provide a more convenient mode for

people who would have registered by other means

anyway. An increase in transactions followed

closely by an increase in registration rates would

provide much stronger support for the conclusion

that the program had had an impact on registration rates. On the other hand, if we should find

an increase in registration rates following no or

few transactions in driver's license offices, we

have to conclude that the change came from some

source other than motor voter.

Figure 4 displays registration rates for the

Michigan, North Carolina, and the United States

for the period of 1972 through 1990. That is the

time frame for which Bureau of Census estimates

of state registration rates are available. We have

already seen that registration rates are sensitive

to the national political cycle, so it is necessary to

use the US rate as a benchmark. The U.S. rate is

shown in Figure 4 as the plain line in the middle.

Note the nationwide drop between 1972 and 1974,

the pattern of rise and fall associated with the

presidential election cycle, and the downturn in

recent years.

Michigan is represented by the line with the

plus marks, the highest line in the figure. It

parallels the U.S. line exactly from 1972 to 1974

but rises much more rapidly between 1974 and

1976 than does the U.S. line. This departure

coincides with the state's institution of its motor

voter program in 1975. Afterwards, the Michigan

line generally parallels the US line again with

two differences. First, it is at a higher level, an

average of seven percentage points higher from

1978 through 1990. Since the previous difference

(1970-72) was just under one percentage point,

the net increase was six percentage points. Second, the Michigan line is more stable and less

sensitive to the political cycle than is the US rate.

Although motor voter transaction rates do follow

the election cycle to some extent, they seem to

have a dampening effect on the swing of total

registration rates.

North Carolina initially follows the US pattern

at a lower level, except for a deeper drop in 1978.

Then in 1984 it rises more steeply than the US

rate and maintains a more stable pattern thereafter, declining as does the US rate but without

the swings associated with presidential elections.

Since 1984 was the year in which North Carolina

began its motor voter program, we might easily

attribute the change in registration rates to it but

for our knowledge of transaction rates. If all of

North Carolina's motor voter transactions in 1984

had been new registrants, they could have accounted for a maximum increase of one percentage point. Although motor voter may have contributed to the rise in 1984, it does not appear to

be the primary cause of the change in North

Carolina's pattern that started then.

The experiences of these two states suggest

three points. First, motor voter works when it is

implemented. Second, implementation is not

automatic. Third, we need some independent

indicator that a program has been implemented

before we try to judge its impact. Yet these are

but two examples. The following section attempts to apply these conclusions to other jurisdictions, recognizing that data is more limited in

these cases.

Comparing Motor Voter Systems

One motive for studying more jurisdictions is

to determine whether motor voter results vary

depending upon the design of the system in use.

This is an important question because some

20
systems are more difficult to implement than

others. Are they worth the trouble?

• Passive systems. We have little information

on passive systems. State and local election

officials in jurisdictions having passive systems

reported mixed results with implementation. No

jurisdictions reported a large increase in registrations as a result of a passive system. On the

other hand, passive systems generally do not

have systematic monitoring systems, so it is difficult to tell what the result is. A survey by a

public interest group in Washington found a very

low rate of implementation in the passive system

used by that state before 1992. Such measures

can be very useful, as would random telephone

surveys of people who have recently received

driver's licenses. Without some standard indicator of implementation across several states, however, it would be dangerous to attempt to assess

the impact of the passive system.

Maryland recently reported an interesting innovation to its passive system. Prince Georges

and Montgomery Counties have opened voter

registration counters in driver licensing offices,

where there is plenty of space available. Staff will

rotate from the local voter registration offices.

Other counties are expected to follow suit. The

two sites are now averaging around 200-300 registrations per month.

• Computer-assisted systems. At the other

extreme of complexity is the computer-assisted

system. The three examples now in place are too

new for comprehensive before-and-after comparisons. Nevertheless, the available data are

instructive. Montana began its program on October 1,1991. In the first three months of operation

the system generated 3531 motor voter transactions. This figure represents 6 percent of the

driver license transactions.

Oregon's computer-assisted system began

around the same time, on September 30, 1991.

Site visits to three counties in December revealed

that the program was being implemented. An

analysis of weekly registration figures, from all

sources, made available by Multnomah County

(Portland) revealed some interesting results.

Comparing the period of October through February in 1991-92 with the same period in 1989-90,

both off-years in the national election cycle, shows

a 62 percent increase in registration activity after

the introduction of motor voter. Of course, the

Portland area's population grew rapidly during

this time period, so the change might not be due

to motor voter. However, Figure 5 shows that the

number of weekly registrations increased markedly when motor voter started in October, 1991,

and maintained a pattern of irregular growth

thereafter. It would appear that motor voter

touched off a significant increase in registration

activity, possibly by making registration convenient for the newly arriving population. It will be

interesting to see whether the pattern stabilizes

in the future.

The State of Washington began its motor voter

program in January of 1992. In King County

(Seattle) the number of new registrations averaged

during the first five months of this year was 95

percent higher than the average for the comparable period in 1988. It was 5 to 13 times higher

than the average in any of the intervening years.

The examples of Portland and Seattle raise two

interesting questions which can only be answered

with time. Could the dramatic increase in registration associated with motor voter be a temporary effect related to the novelty of the program

and, perhaps, to any publicity surrounding its

introduction? To what extent, if any, are the

increases observed in months of normally low

registration displacing activity from the normal

peak months near elections rather than increasing

the total registration rate? Both effects identified

in the second question are desirable, but it would

be useful to sort them out.

At this point in our comparison of motor voter

systems, we have no measures of activity for

passive systems and selective evidence of dramatic

increases for computer-assisted systems. Fortunately, there is more data available for the other

two types of systems.

21
• Active and combined-form systems. A

number of states using other systems have reported transaction data sufficient to support some

rough comparisons. The most useful data come

from states with active or combined-form systems. None of the computer-assisted systems has

been in place long enough to generate even one

year's worth of data.

In order to make comparisons across jurisdictions we have to somehow standardize the

transaction rates. Dividing the number of

transactions by the voting aged population of the

state helps to control for the differences in size.

Seven states and the District of Columbia have

reported transaction data for at least one year

between 1986 and 1991. We know that transaction rates vary from year to year within the same

state, so we should only attach significance to

large differences. It turns out that the jurisdictions cluster in three groups. Michigan stands by

itself with a rate that varied between 10 and 12

percent of voting aged population. Colorado,

Nevada, and DC form another group generally in

the 6 to 9 percent range, with a few exceptions to

be noted below. Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, and

North Carolina fall with a range of 1 to 3 percent,

although we will see exceptions here, too.

These clusters mean very little in themselves

unless we can find some reasonable explanations

for the differences. We can start by asking whether

the choice of motor voter systems (active or

combined) makes a difference. The answer appears to be that it does not, at least not by itself.

States using active, separate-form systems fall in

all three groups - high (Michigan), medium (Nevada), and low (Maine and North Carolina). Jurisdictions using combined-form systems fall into

two categories - medium (Colorado and DC) and

low (Minnesota). The remaining state in the low

group, Iowa, uses a combined form for original

licenses and mail-in postcards available at the

driver license offices for renewals.

Perhaps we can find a better explanation by

looking at the groups of states. The singularly

high transaction rate of Michigan may reflect the

maturity of the program and the strong administrative support behind it. If so, its rate could be

a benchmark to which other programs could aspire. On the other hand, this rate may reflect

conditions not shared with all other states. One

possibility is the fact that local registration is a

function of the township, not the county. As a

result, people moving within the local areas in

Michigan, and in other states with township

registration systems, will change registration

offices more often than in county-based systems.

One of Richard Austin's reasons for starting the

motor voter program in Michigan was that many

voters complained of not knowing where to go to

change their registration. Driver's license offices

are a more easily identifiable and convenient

alternative.

This reasoning suggests that Michigan's unusually high transaction rate may come more

from an unusually high rate of address changes

rather than from new registrations. Address

changes comprised 60 percent of total motor voter

transactions in Michigan from January through

November of 1991. In Colorado, by contrast,

changes averaged 23 percent of transactions in

1987-88. A 1991 report from the District of

Columbia put address changes at 21 percent of

transactions. Emmett Fremaux, Executive Director of the DC Board of Elections and Ethics has

suggested that the percentage of registration

changes among total transactions will naturally

increase with the age of the program. There is

some evidence of this trend in the Michigan data.

The percentage of changes increased from a low of

51 percent in the first year of the program, 1975,

to 66 percent in 1984. Yet even the low of 51

percent in Michigan was higher than the percentages from Colorado and DC. It seems likely that

both factors are at work here - program maturation and the township registration system.

This result leads to another. Without the extra

address changes, Michigan's transaction rate

would fall well within the same range as those of

Colorado, DC, and Nevada. Perhaps 6 to 9 percent of voting aged population is a good benchmark

22
for motor voter programs of this type. Site visits

at two of these jurisdictions, Colorado and DC,

indicated that those programs were being implemented as they were designed to be. The Colorado transaction rate did drop from 6 to 4 percent

in 1989, the last year for which complete data

were available from that state. In that same year

Colorado changed from a 4-year cycle to a 5-year

cycle for driver's license renewals. Nevada, on

the other hand, increased from 8 percent to 11

percent between 1990 and 1991, following the

addition of vehicle registration offices to the program.

What about the remaining group of states,

those for which all observations were well below

the 6 percent mark? Two of them, Maine and

North Carolina appear to be temporary residents

of this category. Maine started its program in

1990 and North Carolina began implementing its

program again in 1989. Both rates were moving

up between those starting points and 1991, and

both were at 3 percent in 1991. Only time will tell

whether these trends continue. The other two

states require more explanation.

Iowa uses a combined, tear-off form that is

attached to the written test taken by first-time

applicants. Driver's license renewal does not

require a form. Driver licensing staff do have post

cards for mail registration and they are supposed

to ask clients whether they wish to register or

change registration. Yet neither process seems to

generate a large number of applications. In 1990,

a total of 5532 individuals applied on the combined

form, and the Department of Transportation reported giving out 15,509 postcards that year.

Both figures declined significantly in 1991. Most

residents get their original license before the age

of 18, and the state has had a loss of population,

indicating that few people would encounter the

combined form because of moving into the state.

Why the postcards do not generate more activity

is less clear. One reason may be the availability

of alternatives. Mail applications are printed in

telephone books and on tax forms. Candidates

and political groups may also deliver mail registration forms. It is clear that Iowa's system is not

directly comparable to those of the other states in

this group.

Minnesota's motor voter program has not had

the restricted reach of Iowa's. The data presented

here are for Minnesota's combined, tear-off form,

which was available for original applications and

renewals until 1992. (The state has just replaced

that application with a combined-duplicate form.)

The explanation for the low level of activity in

Minnesota's motor voter program probably lies in

its even greater availability of alternatives. The

state has both mail registration and election day

registration. Moreover, the target for motor voter

may also be smaller in Minnesota than elsewhere.

Although nationally the percentage of the population licensed to drive greatly exceeds the percentage registered to vote, the difference is not

evenly distributed across the states. In 1990 it

ranged from a high of 40 percentage points in

Delaware to -7 percentage points in Minnesota,

which was the only state to have more registrants

than licensees.

The hypothesis that convenient alternatives

for registration depress the number of motor

voter transactions in Iowa and Minnesota is the

flip side of the argument that Michigan's rate is

high partially because of its township-based

registration system. Both rest on the fundamental

assumption that people will respond to greater

ease or less burden of action. This observation

leads to the question of whether motor voter

systems are really bringing new registrants into

the system or simply making participation easier

for people who would have done so anyway.

In one sense the answer does not matter.

Transaction rates may be used directly as a

measure of public acceptance. A high transaction

rate means that a large portion of the public

prefers this method of conducting its voter registration business to the other options available,

including the option of doing nothing. Interviews

with driver's license staff in a number of states

turned up unsolicited comments in praise of the

program as a public service. Although the pro23
gram added something to their work loads, they

liked the positive feedback they got from the

public. So transactions have some value irrespective of the number of new registrations or

address corrections they produce.

• Transaction and registration rates. Another goal of motor voter programs is to increase

registration. As noted above, transaction rates

include address and name changes, duplications,

and ineligible applications, as well as registrations. Even motor voter registrations may not

actually increase the jurisdiction's total registration rate. Individuals who would have registered

in any case may simply find motor voter to be

more convenient. So we must examine registration rates over time to determine whether there

has been any change.

Table 1 shows the relative change in registration rates for four states following the implementation of motor voter programs. These are all the

states which were shown in the preceding section

to have had significant transaction rates by 1990.

The question here is whether these transactions

had any apparent effect on registration rates.

The second column, headed "Election Dates,"

gives the time frame for each comparison. It

consists of the last national election before the

implementation of motor voter and the election

that followed four years later, so we are comparing presidential with presidential and off-year

with off-year. "Years of Implementation" refers

to the number of years in which motor voter was

implemented between the elections. On the average, only a fourth of each state's prior licensees

would encounter motor voter in a year, but if they

registered, their registration would normally stay

on the books for at least four years. So the effects

should build over time. The net change is the

difference in registration rates between the two

dates, controlling for the change in the U.S.

registration rate. That is, if a state's rate went up

by 5 percentage points and the national rate went

up by 2 percentage points, the net change would

be 3 percentage points.

The results are about what one would expect.

Registration rates did go up, relative to the national average, and they increased most in those

jurisdictions that had the program in place the

longest. Michigan's second place may seem at

odds with its very high transaction rate, but we

must remember that an unusually high percentage of that rate was made up by address changes.

Actually, we should not put too much confidence

in the numbers for any one state because of the

many other factors that can affect registration.

Still, the consistent results from the available

data provide support for the conclusion that higher

transaction rates are followed by noticeable increases in voter registration.

. This is not the same thing as saying that motor

voter will increase relative registration rates in

all cases. Witness the examples of Iowa, Minnesota, and North Carolina until 1989. Program

design and implementation, the size of the target,

and the availability of other attractive options

may all make a difference. The latter two characteristics may not be critical since a small motor

voter target and convenient alternatives for registration generally are found in jurisdictions that

have high registration rates anyway.

Costs

Policy makers and administrators are usually

concerned about the budgetary impact of programs. How much new money will it cost? Motor

voter programs vary from no apparent budgetary

impact to over $100,000 per year in some jurisdictions. These figures can be misleading because

some costs, especially personnel time, are simply

combined with other activities. In many cases the

costs are too small to justify separate tracking.

Because motor voter programs use facilities and

services of agencies that exist for other purposes,

the assignment of costs to the program can be

tricky. The hiring of new personnel is an obvious

impact. But in some cases, at least, the program

seems to have resulted in increased productivity

of existing personnel. The following account

breaks down the major ways in which motor voter

programs use resources and discusses the avail24
able information about the budgetary and organizational impact of each.

• Start-up costs. Some new programs will have

identifiable start-up costs, one-time expenditures

of money or time to begin implementation. These

fall in three categories: training, the design of

new forms, and computer programming.

Passive systems and most of the active systems

did not report any start-up costs. They did not

need to design new forms or reprogram computers. Any training or notification about the new

program was conducted as part of normal operations. As noted above, some election officials have

complained about the lack of training in a few

jurisdictions and have expressed the desire to

conduct it themselves. This might be a costeffective means of communicating registrars' goals

and concerns to driver licensing personnel. Normally, any procedural training will have to be

conducted by or carefully coordinated with the

parent agency, which is the only one with authority to set priorities and modify activities of agency

personnel.

Training methods and costs vary among the

remaining jurisdictions. Several have produced

pamphlets or instruction sheets for driver licensing personnel. These describe the routine procedures that the staff are to follow and tell what

to do in the case of questions or problems. West

Virginia has an excellent manual but has not

broken out the development costs or printing

costs. The State of Washington has produced a

video presentation. Its estimated development,

production, and field training costs for the initial

implementation of the program was $4784.

Many jurisdictions need to redesign forms.

This step can be as simple as adding a question to

the driver's license application or as complicated

as the integration of multiple applications. Most

form design is done in-house and not separately

costed. This was the case for the DC form, which

appears to be the most comprehensive redesign

yet accomplished.

Computer programming is obviously required

for the computer-assisted systems. In addition,

where the driver licensing staff records applicant

information directly onto a computer, jurisdictions using active systems may add a question to

the computer screen. It is both a prompt for staff

to ask about voter registration and a method of

recording applicant responses. Oregon, which

uses a computer-assisted system, estimated programming start-up costs at $4900. The State of

Washington, which has electronic transfer of

registration information, recorded start-up computer costs of $17000.

Washington's total start-up costs for the Department of Licensing, not including the time of

implementing staff and administrators, was

$25,426.50. This state has the most complete

computer-integrated system adopted so far and is

the only state to have prepared a training video.

So this figure does not represent average costs. It

covers the most extensive start-up program encountered for this report.

• Supplies and Equipment. The most obvious supply requirement is that of the application

forms, which vary widely in cost. Many jurisdictions do not report form costs separately. They

are quite low and are combined with other printing

costs. Prices for the more complicated forms

range form 2 cents to 6 cents apiece. However,

printing costs associated with different designs

cannot be separated from other programmatic

costs for two reasons.

First, design determines usage and the number of forms actually used can also vary widely.

Active systems and Washington's computer-assisted system provide forms only for those who

say they need them. Combined forms, by definition, go to everyone who requests any type of

application offered on that form. So the additional

cost of the motor voter application must be multiplied by the total number of forms used, not just

the number of motor voter applications received.

Wastage also varies with the use of the form.

Those placed out in the office are more likely to be

wasted than those given out at the counter. Mailin forms, such as those that accompany renewal

notices in some jurisdictions, can use a lot of

25
forms per application received. One official commented that her jurisdiction had distributed

enough postcards to cover the voting aged population several times over.

Second, form design also affects the amount of

staff time required to operate the program. The

DC form increased printing costs but lowered

transaction time, for example. Estimates of

transaction times are provided below.

Postage is another expense for some jurisdictions, and the cost will vary depending upon

usage. Minnesota spent $900 for postage in a

year. Montana estimates $25 per month for

postage. The greatest potential postage expense

that is unique to motor voter programs is the cost

of mailing applications from the driver licensing

offices to the voter registration offices. We do not

have a postage cost from a high-volume state that

used the mail to transfer applications. Yet postage costs should be fairly easy to estimate by

jurisdictions considering motor voter programs.

An equipment expense could be incurred by

local voter registration offices if the size and

shape of the form produced, coupled with requirements for access to original signatures, necessitates the acquisition of new filing cabinets or

binders. Some states, such as Michigan, have

chosen to use more elaborate forms in order to

avoid this difficulty.

• Personnel. People are at once the most expensive and the least expensive part of a motor

voter program. They are the most expensive part

because multiplying even a small amount of time

devoted to motor activities by the number of

people involved will produce a large figure. The

State of Washington's Department of Licensing

estimated the total staff time spent on their

program at $209,672 per year. Yet people are the

least expensive item in many budgets because no

personnel are added. Licensing personnel in

Washington are doing motor voter with the same

staff as before. The need for additional personnel

is partially a function of system design and partially a function of how busy the existing personnel are with their normal duties.

Several jurisdictions have estimated the time

required for each motor voter transaction in order

to figure total personnel requirements. Oregon

has made the useful distinction between the time

it takes to determine whether a motor voter

transaction is needed and the time required to

actually conduct a motor voter transaction. The

former estimate, 15 seconds, must be applied to

all applications in the agency. The latter estimate, 30 seconds, applies only to motor voter

transactions. Using these numbers, plus incidentals and some executive time, Oregon estimated the personnel cost to the DMV of $94,796

in the first biennium and $ 114,918 in the following

one. This is just over $50,000 per year. DMV staff

now think this estimate may be a little low.

Other jurisdictions have different estimates

depending upon the requirements of their systems. Several fall within the 2-3 minute range for

normal transactions. Those that require or offer

any unusual activity will take longer. In Colorado, the driver licensing staff must verbally

administer an oath to each applicant. In North

Carolina, the staff members generally type the

necessary information onto the registration application. The best guidance for any jurisdiction

considering adoption or modification of a motor

voter system is to run simulations and field tests.

It is very difficult to generalize from one system

to another.

There may be changes in the work load of

election personnel, too. One would expect their

work to increase as the number of transactions

increases. That would be true of any program.

Particular types of change may be associated

primarily with motor voter, however. Some states

collect the applications in a central office and

then send them to the appropriate local registrars. This function requires staff time. Effects

at the local registration offices will probably depend upon the design of the forms and the care

with which they are completed. If registrars have

to paste forms onto standard sized cards or do

extensive follow-up for incomplete or illegible

applications, then motor voter applications will

26
be more difficult to process than others. So time

saved by system designers or at driver licensing

staff may have to be paid back in voter registration offices. Conversely, several registrars commented that motor voter applications were easier

to process than those produced by other outreach

programs because they were typed or computerprinted.

Work load changes do not have to be negative

for either driver licensing or voter registration

offices. The change of forms in the District of

Columbia seems to have brought an absolute

increase in staff productivity. Because of the

consolidation of applications they are able to

handle their total work load more efficiently than

before. Even changes that impose real increases

in transaction time may not result in comparable

increases in costs. The actual impact depends

upon how much down time there is between

applications. Some offices, especially those in

large urban areas, work at or near capacity all of

the time. Less active offices often have an intermittent flow of clients. A small increment of time

per client will have a much greater impact on the

former than on the latter.

In voter registration offices motor voter tends

to increase efficiency by smoothing the transaction rate throughout the year. Normal registration activity is heavily concentrated around elections. Motor voter activity tends to be more

evenly dispersed throughout the year, although it

does follow the election calendar to a limited

degree in some jurisdictions. A possible explanation for this pattern is that people interact with

driver licensing offices for reasons totally independent of the election schedule, but the publicity

surrounding elections makes some difference in

the number of them who take advantage of their

motor voter opportunities. Data from the District

of Columbia shows a much more even rate, month

by month, for motor voter registrations than for

other registrations. Offices can use their staff

much more efficiently and can avoid hiring temporary help if their work loads are steady.

Election officials have been almost universal in

praise of this feature of the program. One did

comment that frequent address changes between

elections created more work than was necessary,

but even this complaint reflects the registrars'

greater ability to keep registration files current.

In fact, most responses from local registrars focused on the benefits of increased efficiency and

better file maintenance rather than increases in

registration rates. One official in Colorado even

reported cutting back on permanent positions.

Design and Implementation

Strategies

Does program design matter? There are examples of apparently successful programs in three

of the four design categories (active, combinedform, and computer-assisted). Within these three

categories, at least, implementation appears to

be the most important variable that can be affected

by program sponsors. Yet it turns out that

implementation is related to design in a paradoxical way. The systems that require the most

change in existing forms and procedures would

appear to be the most difficult to implement. Yet

no official in combined-form or computer-assisted

jurisdictions mentioned non-implementation or

partial implementation as a problem. At least

one official in 9 of 15 states with statutes mandating passive or active programs mentioned this

problem.

This result makes sense in light of implementation theory and the design of motor voter programs. Combining forms or modifying computer

programs commits the driver licensing and voter

registration organizations to a joint course of

action. There may be problems, as both Oregon

and Washington have experienced to some extent

during their start-up phases, but so far the agencies involved have been able to solve them or live

with them. Where the organizational forms and

procedures are not so tightly integrated and other

commitments take priority, non- implementation

or reduced implementation is a possibility.

27
A number of jurisdictions have taken steps to

improve the design of their programs and to

facilitate implementation before starting fullscale operations. In Oregon, for example, the

Secretary of State's office, the county clerks' association , and the Division of Motor Vehicles worked

cooperatively to refine the original proposal as it

moved through the legislative process. DMV

staff ran simulations to estimate the staff time

required per transaction as a result of motor

voter, and they contacted other states to compare

figures. The county clerks agreed to take responsibility for transferring the completed forms from

the driver's license offices to the appropriate

registration offices. Several participants commented that the level of cooperation made the

difference in the passage and implementation of

motor voter during a period of severe financial

constraint.

In the state of Washington the Secretary of

State created a special office to implement the

transfer of signature forms and application information from the driver's license offices to the

counties. Meanwhile, the Department of Licensing involved its district offices in the design of

detailed procedures, such as deciding at what

point to ask the applicants if they wished to

register. Their participation improved the ultimate design and gave them an opportunity to feel

some ownership of the program, according to

John Specht, the DMV official charged with

implementation. DMV also produced a videotape

to train its personnel in the new procedure.

Training is an important part of implementation. Several respondents who felt that driver

licensing personnel were not fully implementing

the program in their states pointed to a lack of

training. It may be the case that the jurisdictions

with the less complicated programs (passive and

active) are also the ones less likely to offer comprehensive training in motor voter administration. Yet the need for training may be greatest

where the desired action is not automatically

built into the operating routine.

Field-testing is also a useful device. New York

state ran a pilot program of mailing voter registration request cards with motor vehicle registration renewal applications from August 1987

through September 1988. That program was not

continued. New York does include Department of

Motor Vehicle offices in its agency-based registration program. Maine also ran a pilot program

tied to the registration of motor vehicles, beginning in April of 1990. It moved to full implementation in August of 1990.

At least four states employ mechanisms to

audit their systems. Michigan and West Virginia

compare motor voter transactions with other

transactions coming from each branch office.

North Carolina sends to each county a voter

transaction list from the DMV each month. The

State Board of Elections directs the county boards

to contact each listed person for whom they have

not received a registration or change of address

record. New York has sent inspectors to agency

offices to insure that the staff was asking clients

about registration.

The District of Columbia has the most thorough

system for tracking the implementation and impact of its motor voter program. It has added a

field on the computer record for each voter to

designate the source of registration. This step

permits the development of statistics on the

subsequent turnout of motor voter registrants

compared to other registrants.

Legislation

Although a few programs are based upon executive order, most are based upon legislation. A

properly drafted law can resolve many problems

that would otherwise impede implementation or

limit impact. The specific language of bills will

have to vary depending upon the type of system

desired and the existing elections law. There are,

however, a number of elements that should be

considered. 100% VOTE/Human SERVE has

published a recommended checklist for model

legislation in its News on Agency-Based Voter

28
Registration of February 15, 1992. That list

provided the idea for this one, which covers the

same items and suggests a few more. The purpose here is to point out certain issues that should

be resolved and not to recommend a particular

resolution.

The first issue to address is how much detail to

put in the legislation. The answer will vary from

state to state. Some jurisdictions traditionally

leave matters to administrative rule- making

that others put in legislation. The Minnesota

statute is quite brief, but it contains a number of

essential elements.

The department of public safety shall change its

applications {agency required to take action) for

an original, duplicate, or change of address driver's

license or identification card (type of driver licensing actions to be included in motor voter} so

that the forms may also serve as voter registration

cards, {type of form - combined) The forms must

contain spaces for the information required in

section 201.071, subdivision 1 {specific informational requirements for new form to meet) and

applicable rules of the secretary of state, {rule

making authority over registration applies here,

too) Applicants for driver's licenses or identification cards {target of the program) must be asked

if they want to register to vote at the same time.

(method of notification) A copy of each application

containing a completed voter registration must be

sent to the county auditor of the county in which

the voter maintains residence or to the secretary of

state {establishes transfer responsibilities and

options) as soon as possible, {provides guideline

for timeliness of transfer without setting specific

standard)

The statute goes on to make relevant computer

records available to the secretary of state and for

use in the statewide voter registration system

being developed. Elsewhere the secretary of state

is given broad rule-making authority over the

statewide registration system, including the

prescribing of procedures for the transfer of motor voter forms from the licensing offices to the

secretary of state or to the county registrars.

Other jurisdictions will make different choices

and provide different levels of detail in their

statutes. Below is a list of issues for consideration

in the drafting of statutes.

• Target. Passive systems do not need to specify

a target because the forms are available to anyone in the office. Other systems specify who is to

be offered the opportunity to register by listing

the types of applications that are to be included in

the motor voter program. These may include:

initial driver's licenses, renewals, duplicates,

name or address changes, non-driver identification cards, organ donor designations and vehicle

registrations. Statutes typically begin this with

"All applicants for..." Then they list the licenses

or other transactions to be included. They conclude with the action to be taken such as asking

a specific question or simply providing an opportunity to register.

• Notification. If the goal is to have a staff

person ask each applicant whether he or she

wishes to register, that requirement must be in

the statute. Failure to mention notification or

language requiring only that registration forms

be "available" may be interpreted as allowing a

passive system. On the other hand, it is not

necessary to specify the point in the process at

which voter registration will be offered.

• Form. It is necessary to prescribe the type of

application form and establish responsibility for

designing and providing it. It is neither practical

nor necessary to describe the form in great detail.

Doing so limits the ability of administrators to

design the most efficient form for the current

system or to adjust to changing technologies. The

most important distinction is between separate

forms, on the one hand, and combined-form or

computer-assisted applications on the other.

Without a specific mandate the driver licensing

agency will generally not incur the expense and

disruption of redesigning an essential component

of its system.

Expressing the desired policy in a statute requires considerable care. For example, a mandate for a single form would permit tear-off

29
forms (Iowa and, formerly, Minnesota) or duplicate forms (DC and Colorado). It would include

the computer-assisted systems of Oregon and

Montana, but not include the state of

Washington's system as it is now configured. A

mandate for a motor voter registration system

that requires only an additional signature would

allow either combined-duplicate forms or computer-assisted applications, but it would also

necessitate putting all of the necessary information for voter registration, e.g., residence address

or affirmation of eligibility, on the basic application. Involving the implementing agencies in

the drafting process helps the legislature craft a

statute that provides the necessary stimulus and

authority while avoiding unnecessary restrictions.

• Assistance and other staff duties. Statutes

generally authorize driver licensing staff to accept applications and describe any particular

actions that they are to take. Drafters should

consider the issue of deputization here. Approaches range from permitting deputization, to

requiring deputization of at least one employee in

each office, to exempting driver licensing personnel from deputization requirements by directly

granting them authority to accept applications.

Whether assistance should be addressed in the

statute is an issue. Some laws are silent on this

point, leaving discretion to the implementing

agency. Others, such as the new Texas law,

require nonpartisan assistance upon request. Still

others mandate a variety of activities including

administering oaths, witnessing signatures,

stamping applications, and providing receipts.

In some cases these duties are assigned by reference. Applying an existing deputization law to

licensing employees brings into the motor voter

process all of the existing requirements for the

acceptance of applications by deputy registrars.

The amount of staff interaction involved determines the transaction times described earlier in

this report, and depending upon the design of the

system, may also determine the quality of applications received by registrars. It is important

that system designers weigh carefully the costs

and benefits of each requirement.

• Transfer responsibility. Legislation should

fix responsibility for transferring forms. Most

legislation also addresses the issue of timeliness.

Some specify a weekly transfer.

• Record keeping and reporting. Since the

record keeping systems of the implementing

agencies will not have been designed to monitor

and evaluate a motor voter system, drafters should

consider whether it is necessary to mandate record

keeping and reporting in the statute. The discussion of motor voter measurement in this report

suggests the use of some common statistics. The

number of motor voter transactions compared to

total transactions in individual driver licensing

offices and in the system as a whole provide a

measure of implementation and initial impact.

(Low transactions in a few offices might reflect

implementation problems while low transactions

in the whole system might reflect design problems.) As noted in the case of Michigan, it would

be useful to break down motor voter transactions

into new registrations and address or name

changes. Registration offices could record number of registrations received by source if the forms

permit such identification, such as motor voter vs

mail vs deputy registrars. Record keeping is

easiest where files are stored on computer. Fields

can be added to indicate source and type of registration transaction. In jurisdictions that keep

voting histories, turnout rates of motor voter

registrants can be compared with those of people

who registered through other systems. The District of Columbia has already undertaken such

studies. In order to evaluate the whole system a

central office will have to aggregate statistics for

the whole jurisdiction. Thus it is useful to designate reporting and monitoring requirements.

• Organizational responsibilities and relationships. Because independent organizations are involved, it is usually necessary to

designate which agency is responsible for each

element of the system. This is usually accomplished in the language setting forth the requirement as the Minnesota example shows. It tasks

the department of public safety with changing its

application and requires that the voter registra30
tion portion comply with rules promulgated by

the secretary of state. Statutes frequently designate a lead agency and mandate consultation

with other agencies.

• Training. No statute reviewed for this report

mandated a training program for licensing personnel. Yet given the frequency with which

training was mentioned as a potential remedy for

implementation problems, it is worth considering. Putting a training requirement in the statute also increases the probability that the associated costs will be recognized and provided for.

• Adjustments to other state law. This is a

catch-all category for provisions necessary to address any gaps between the motor voter program

and existing state law.

A Checklist for Program Design

and Implementation

The preceding section focused on motor voter

legislation. The following list subsumes those

recommendations under a checklist of items to

consider in the total design and implementation

of motor voter programs. Not all of them will be

necessary in every case and some of them may not

be politically or practically feasible in particular

cases. There may also be unintended omissions.

The purpose is to provide a summary statement

that can be modified by others based upon their

experiences.

• Determine the target for the proposed system. Depending upon the jurisdiction, different

procedures may be needed to reach initial licensees and persons applying for renewals, duplicates

or changes. There may be additional opportunities related to non-driver ID cards, organ donor

designations, and vehicle registrations.

• Review the organization of the driver licensing and voter registration functions in

he state. Identify the key officials and their

organizational relationships. Create a program

design team representing the parties to be involved in implementation, if it is possible to do so.

Learn how any proposed changes will affect their

internal procedures. It may be necessary to

create or designate the organizational structure

for rule making, monitoring, and problem resolution in the motor voter program.

• Review existing election law. Issues of

particular importance to the design of motor

voter programs are requirements for: deputization

of driver license staff, the administration of oaths

to applicants, witnessing of applicants' signatures, the delivery of original signatures to the

polling places on election day, and polling place

procedures for dealing with anyone whose registration application is not processed in time (e.g.

whether a receipt issued at a driver licensing

office would be accepted). Some jurisdictions

have changed existing law or exempted the motor

voter program in order to streamline procedures.

Others have designed their motor voter programs

to more easily fit existing requirements.

• Review different motor voter designs.

Consider (a) how each would fit the proposed

target for the program, the existing organization

of the driver licensing and voter registration

functions in the jurisdiction, and the relevant

election laws and/or (b) how any of these might be

changed to accommodate a desired motor voter

program. The descriptions of motor voter elements in this report provide a starting place and

may help in narrowing the search. Contact with

officials who have experience implementing the

type of program being considered is especially

important. Such contact should not be limited to

officials representing one agency but should be

extended to experienced representatives of all

offices involved in the implementation. The

experiences of local offices (county or township

offices for registrars, district or mobile offices for

driver's license personnel) tend to differ depending upon the size of the jurisdiction.

• Estimate costs and benefits of the designs

still under consideration. Suggestions are

contained in the section on motor voter measurement above. Two points require emphasis. First,

31
there is rarely a one-to-one correspondence between the results in one jurisdiction and results

of the same program in another. Projections must

take local conditions into account. Second, both

immediate and long-range consequences are important. The careful integration of organizational routines between the regular driver licensing program and the motor voter program

will usually increase start-up costs but improve

program implementation thereafter.

• Choose a design and prepare legislation.

In practice a legislative proposal will often precede the steps described above, not follow them.

Yet, ideally, a jurisdiction would have done a good

bit of information gathering and decision making

before finalizing the legislative mandate.

• Pass legislation.

• Prepare a detailed implementation plan.

This is the point at which agencies work out

specific procedures and establish responsibilities

and timetables.

• Develop materials and software as required.

• Test the program and adjust as necessary.

It is usually necessary to test the assumptions

built into a program on an audience that is not

familiar with its history or purpose. There are a

variety of ways to pre-test programs ranging from

simulations with a few volunteers to full-blown

pilot programs such as those employed by several

of the jurisdictions studied for this report.

• Train personnel.

• Launch program. Publicity can help notify

the public and impress upon implementing personnel that this is an important project.

• Monitor implementation and impact.

Conclusion

Motor voter can make a difference. The high

numbers of transactions in some jurisdictions

indicate that a significant portion of the public

likes the program. Clearly, many people register

to vote or change registration information through

motor voter. Convenience to voters and improved

voter file maintenance are valuable and attainable goals, irrespective of other effects. In addition, at least some of the people who register in

this way probably would not have registered

through other means. There has been a positive

change in the registration rate, relative to the

national registration rate, in all four jurisdictions

where a high transaction rate has been documented. However, any conclusion regarding the

effects of motor voter on participation rates must

be regarded as preliminary. There is not yet

enough data to sort out the effects of motor voter

from the other factors that can influence registration and turnout.

Passage of a motor voter statute will not have

the same effect in every jurisdiction. The most

important determinants of motor voter impact

seem to be program design, the degree of implementation, the size of the target, and the relative

attractiveness of available alternatives.

Design and implementation are related. Programs using separate forms (passive and active)

are the easiest to implement initially because

they have the lowest start-up costs. Yet all of the

reports of incomplete implementation after the

intial start-up come from jurisdictions of this

type. The reason seems to be that the other two

types (combined-form and computer-assisted)

require permanent change in the operating routines of driver licensing offices. The transition

will almost certainly encounter organizational

and technical difficulties, but once it is accomplished motor voter becomes a more or less automatic part of the office procedures.

Where an active program is implemented, as in

the case of Michigan, the impact on registration

rates appears to be as strong as for combinedform programs. The computer-assisted programs

are too new to have comparable impact data.

Jurisidictions having convenient registration alternatives and high registration rates before motor

voter would seem less likely to experience a

32
dramati

c change after adopting a program. Data

now coming in from new programs in states with

already high registration rates (Maine, for ex-

ample) may cast some doubt on this generaliza-

tion, however. It would be useful to learn whether

the transaction rates continue to increase and

whether they result in increased registration.

Different program designs incur different costs

and they distribute those costs differently, both

among implementing agencies and between start-

up and continuing implementation. Failures to

provide adequate resources or to distribute them

properly have been cited as explanations for

implementation problems. Yet there are examples

of improved productivity as a result of motor

voter and evidence that it can be very cost-effective

relative to other forms of registration outreach.

The District of Columbia has excellent compara-

tive data on this last point.

Thus it appears that both costs and benefits

will vary depending upon the type of program and

characteristics of the jurisdiction implementing

it. This report has attempted to describe the basic

program types as well as some important juris-

dictional characteristics of programs now in

existance and to suggest some generalizations

that policy makers might use in designing new

programs or modifying old ones. The knowledge

base in this field is changing rapidly as jurisdic-

tions experiment with new programs and more

information accumlates from existing programs.

The election community should continue to follow

these developments and to build a base of com-

parable data from which future policy makers

and election administrators can draw.

33

Appendix 1

Exhibits

35
Exhibit 1
Exhibit 2
Exhibit 3
Exhibit 4
Exhibit 5
Exhibit 6
Exhibit 7
Exhibit 8
Exhibit 9
Exhibit 10
Exhibit 11
Exhibit 12

Appendix 2

Figures

49
Figure 1

LICENSEES, REGISTRANTS, & VOTERS AS PERCENTAGES OF VAP
Figure 2

LICENSED DRIVERS AND REGISTERED VOTERS AS % OF AGE GROUPS
Figure 3

MOTOR VOTER TRANSACTIONS IN TWO STATES
Figure 4

REGISTRATION RATES IN THE U.S., MICHIGAN, AND NORTH CAROLINA
Figure 5

WEEKLY REGISTRATIONS IN MULTNOMAH COUNTY, OREGON,

FROM 3/4/91 TO 2/3/92
Appendix 3

Table

55
Table 1

CHANGES IN STATE REGISTRATION RELATIVE TO U.S.

STATE

Colorado

Michigan

Nevada

DC

ELECTION DATES

84-88

74-78

86-90

86-90

YEARS OF

IMPLEMENTATION

4

4

2

1

NET CHANGE

7.8%

6.6%

4.8%

2.7%

56



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