With Automatic Voter Registration, Democrats Gain Permanent Power.

Automatic ‌Voter Registration: A Fast Track to Democrat Power

Automatic voter registration (AVR) may ‍sound obscure, but it’s a fast track to⁤ permanent Democrat power ⁣—​ so, naturally, ⁣activists are working‍ around the ⁣clock to pass it in the states‍ and Congress.

Modern elections are usually⁤ won by the party that turns out ‍the bigger base. ⁣Left-wing strategists ⁢believe⁤ their victory hinges on astronomically⁤ high ⁣Democratic‌ turnout. ⁤Whether that’s true or ⁣not matters less‍ than ​their perception ‍that it ‍worked to oust President Donald Trump in 2020 and saved the left from catastrophe in the 2022 midterms, ⁤even when Republicans won the popular vote⁤ nationwide by a bigger ⁤percentage margin than Hillary Clinton won ⁣ in 2016.

That’s what AVR is all about: bloating ⁢voter rolls to juice Democrat votes. It works⁣ because ⁣the left has spent ‍close to a decade-and-a-half and untold ⁣billions of dollars building a get-out-the-vote ⁣machine that abuses IRS charity laws to win elections.

Under normal‌ rules, eligible ⁤Americans must register⁤ to vote​ on their own initiative, usually ⁤at their county registrar or⁣ online⁢ through the state⁢ motor vehicle ⁣department. It’s a ⁤simple,⁣ fair ‌thing‍ to ​ask ‍people ​to show an interest in voting and then verify their identity before they‌ cast ‍a ballot; that’s how our country ‌has run elections for nearly 250 years.

AVR transforms that opt-in system into an opt-out mess by adding virtually everyone with a heartbeat to state voter rolls, instantly and dramatically expanding the pool of ⁢registered voters for ​the left to cynically⁣ tap into. Don’t want to ⁤be added to a publicly⁣ accessible ⁢list? Too bad — it’s on you to take ⁤the initiative to unregister, Democrats say.

How many voters are ​we talking about? 158 ⁤million⁣ ballots were cast in 2020. Yet Demos, the think ⁤tank of the far left and an AVR champion, ​estimates there are ⁤as many ⁤as 77 million eligible-but-unregistered individuals nationwide — folks ⁢who could lawfully vote but⁣ may not⁢ until they’re⁣ registered‍ to vote ‍in their respective states.

Not every⁢ one of them would ‌support Democrats‍ if ‌registered,‍ of course, but even winning ⁤a ⁣fraction would be enough‍ to ensure Democratic presidential ‍wins for a⁣ generation ‍or longer.

That’s​ why AVR ⁤is supported by the Brennan Center, the origin of the left’s most odious election “reforms,” ⁣and the Center ⁣for American Progress, which boasted in 2018 that AVR could add ⁣ 22 million newly registered voters nationwide ⁣ in just its first year. Note ‍that Minnesota’s recent election law includes AVR alongside “non-English voting materials” and the pre-registration of 16-year-olds to vote.

To ‌hear ⁤leftists ⁢crow, you’d think the‌ United States never ​ran a⁢ free election in centuries without AVR laws. The LGBT Movement Advancement Project, which dinks red states for their voter ID ​laws, ‍ considers AVR ⁤essential to the health of a state’s‍ “democracy.”

AVR is needed “to save ‌democracy,”⁤ according to the Daily Beast. Without it,‍ America ​isn’t ⁢a “real democracy,” lies the ⁢extremist⁤ Center for‍ Popular Democracy. FairVote, which also ⁤wants⁤ to replace​ the Electoral College with a national ​popular vote ⁣for president, considers AVR “good for⁣ American democracy.” ​Ditto Common Cause, GQ, and Project ‍Vote.

Conservatives have been too​ shortsighted to ⁢pay attention,⁣ but leftists have been tapping⁤ this goldmine ⁤for years. Of the ⁣ 23 states ‌ with AVR laws, only ​three are consistently run by⁣ Republicans: Georgia, West Virginia, and Alaska.

Michigan enacted AVR⁣ in 2018 after a lobbying campaign by the ACLU, Sierra Club, United​ Auto Workers, and socialist group Our Revolution. In my home⁤ state of Virginia, where legislators are capped on⁢ the number of bills they may introduce in a single session, Democrats made introducing AVR a top⁣ priority when⁢ they held total power in 2020. It⁣ passed on a partisan split.

Incoming congressional Democrats, fresh from retaking the House of Representatives in 2018, ‌ demanded Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi, D–Calif., “expand automatic voter registration across ⁢the country” as part of their “upcoming democracy bill.”

They got their wish with the 2019 “Voting Rights Advancement⁤ Act,” then again with the 2021 “For the People Act” and “Automatic⁢ Voter Registration Act,” and most recently with the 2023 ⁣“Freedom​ to Vote Act.”

Recall that running elections and maintaining voter rolls are the duty of the states,⁣ not Uncle Sam, yet Democrats would force​ all 50 states​ to ⁣severely ​bloat their voter files. America’s voter rolls are already in bad shape, despite⁢ (mostly red) states’ best efforts to clean them up.

Georgia recently announced‍ it removed 432,000 inactive voters from its rolls since 2021. Virginia⁤ removed⁢ 114,000 inactive voters in‌ 2021; Oklahoma another ​ 90,000 ⁢in 2019; Kentucky dropped‌ 127,000 in 2023; ⁣Arkansas may remove⁢ 300,000 ‍ inactive voters this⁣ year; Pennsylvania dropped​ 180,000 in 2023;‌ and Rhode⁣ Island removed another 60,000 inactive voters earlier this year.‍ Texas and Mississippi are ⁣weighing ​bills that would allow them to more aggressively cull inactive voters from their rolls.

States are required by ⁣law to keep accurate voter files, to the left’s chagrin. Ohio, which⁢ culled 116,000 ​inactive voters‌ from⁣ its ⁢rolls ‍in 2021,⁤ knows best⁤ how much leftists loathe what they ​call “voter purges.” In 2017, then-attorney ⁢general Eric Holder tried ⁤to block Ohio from removing inactive voters as⁣ one of the⁣ last acts of the Obama⁣ administration — only to ‌lose the next year in a landmark Supreme Court ruling.

The truth is obvious: Democrats‍ don’t ‍want accurate voter rolls; they want‍ swollen ⁤voter rolls. Left-wing NPR admits as much.

This is bad⁢ election ⁢policy, and it isn’t cheap. Nevada’s AVR policy cost taxpayers $4.8 million to ‌implement, plus more to maintain⁢ it.

It’s no surprise that the left’s big-money donors⁢ are in on the action. We’ve traced hundreds of thousands of dollars since 2017 to implementing‍ AVR in the‌ states from ​the Tides Foundation, Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund,‍ the Joyce Foundation (whose board once‌ included then-Sen. Barack Obama), and the⁤ Carnegie Corporation. One six-figure ⁤Carnegie grant to the University of Southern California is even tagged for⁤ studying “the state-level impact‍ of automatic ⁤voter registration … [on] the ⁤national Latino electorate.”

For‌ Republicans, fighting AVR is a no-brainer.​ To the detriment of ⁣election integrity, Congress and the states have⁣ already made registering to vote and casting​ a ballot extremely easy. What we need are cleaner voter rolls and more ​secure elections, not a public subsidy for the Democrats’ get-out-the-vote machine.