"The National Voter Registration Act" of 1993 (NVRA)

[xotrevor]

How many people know that "The National Voter Registration Act" of 1993 (NVRA) a piece of legislation that was signed by Bill Clinton in 1993, imposed fraud friendly rules on the states by requiring driver's license bureaus to register anyone who applies for a driver's license to vote, to offer mail and registration with no identification required, and to forbid government workers to challenge new registrations, while making it difficult to purge "Deadwood" voters (those who have died or moved away).

The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), also known as the Motor Voter Act, is a United States federal law signed into law by President Bill Clinton on May 20, 1993, that came into effect on January 1, 1995. The law was enacted under the Elections Clause of the United States Constitution and advances voting rights in the United States by requiring state governments to offer simplified voter registration processes for any eligible person who applies for or renews a driver's license or applies for public assistance, and requiring the United States Postal Service to mail election materials of a state as if the state is a nonprofit.[1] The law requires states to register applicants that use a federal voter registration form, and prohibits states from removing registered voters from the voter rolls unless certain criteria are met.

The act exempts from its requirements states that have continuously since August 1, 1994, not required voter registration for federal elections or offered election day registration (EDR) for federal general elections. Six states qualify for the exemption: North Dakota, which does not require registration, while Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Wyoming because of the EDR exemption. Maine lost the exemption when it abolished EDR in 2011, although EDR was subsequently restored in that state.

The Elections Clause of the United States Constitution:

Article I, Section 4, Clause 1:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of choosing Senators.

By its terms, Article I, Section 4, Clause 1, also contemplates the times, places, and manner of holding elections being prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof, subject to alteration by Congress (except as to the place of choosing Senators). However, the Court did not have occasion to address what constitutes regulation by a state Legislature for purposes of the Elections Clause until its 2015 decision in Arizona State Legislature v. Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission. There, the Court rejected the Arizona legislature’s challenge to the validity of the Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission (AIRC) and AIRC’s 2012 map of congressional districts. The Commission had been established by a 2000 ballot initiative, which removed redistricting authority from the legislature and vested it in the AIRC. The legislature asserted that this arrangement violated the Elections Clause because the Clause contemplates regulation by a state Legislature and Legislature means the state’s representative assembly.

The Court disagreed and held that Arizona’s use of an independent commission to establish congressional districts is permissible because the Elections Clause uses the word Legislature to describe the power that makes laws, a term that is broad enough to encompass the power provided by the Arizona constitution for the people to make laws through ballot initiatives. In so finding, the Court noted that the word Legislature has been construed in various ways depending upon the constitutional provision in which it is used, and its meaning depends upon the function that the entity denominated as the Legislature is called upon to exercise in a specific context. Here, in the context of the Elections Clause, the Court found that the function of the Legislature was lawmaking and that this function could be performed by the people of Arizona via an initiative consistent with state law. The Court also pointed to dictionary definitions from the time of the Framers; the Framers’ intent in adopting the Elections Clause; the harmony between the initiative process and the Constitution’s conception of the people as the font of governmental power; and the practical consequences of invalidating the Arizona initiative.

State authority to regulate the times, places, and manner of holding congressional elections has been described by the Court as embrac[ing] authority to provide a complete code for congressional elections ...; in short, to enact the numerous requirements as to procedure and safeguards which experience shows are necessary in order to enforce the fundamental rights involved. The Court has upheld a variety of state laws designed to ensure that elections—including federal elections – are fair and honest and orderly. But the Court distinguished state laws that go beyond protection of the integrity and regularity of the election process, and instead operate to disadvantage a particular class of candidates. Term limits, viewed as serving the dual purposes of disadvantaging a particular class of candidates and evading the dictates of the Qualifications Clause, crossed this line, as did ballot labels identifying candidates who disregarded voters’ instructions on term limits or declined to pledge support for them. [T]he Framers understood the Elections Clause as a grant of authority to issue procedural regulations, and not as a source of power to dictate electoral outcomes, to favor or disfavor a class of candidates, or to evade important constitutional restraints.