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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Olympia House Passes Progressive Voter Access Bills

Posted by Cienna Madrid on Thu, Mar 7, 2013 at 4:17 PM

We gushed about a few voter access bills in this week's news section, now today brings good news courtesy of the youth voting advocacy group Washington Bus that two of those bills have passed in the House:

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Bus spokesman Alex Miller notes that "election day voter registration" is misleading, as the bill was significantly amended to appease county auditors, who feared the extra work that same-day registration would entail, and to woo Republicans. The bill actually moves the online voter registration deadline up from 29 days before an election to 11 days, while bumping the in-person deadline back from eight days to 11 days. It also moves the mail-in change of county form deadline up from 29 days to 28 days. The compromises worked; nine Republicans voted in favor of the bill.

"It's less exciting but still an improvement," says Miller. "That was the bill's only hope of progressing in the Senate."

In less complicated news, 16- and 17-year olds will now be able to pre-register to vote at the DMV!

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Now here's hoping these bills can weather the Senate.

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still don't understand why there were dissenting votes for this stuff.

Posted by Gordon Werner on March 7, 2013 at 4:23 PM

@1, then you haven't been watching a bunch of other states passing draconian voting laws in the last few years which are clearly aimed and disenfranchising voters.

This is great news. I'm glad WA is moving in the direction of making it easier for voters to vote, rather than harder.

Posted by Reverse Polarity on March 7, 2013 at 5:17 PM