PILF Offers Voter Registration Policy ‘Best Practices’ to State Legislators

Published On: December 06th, 2017

(NASHVILLE, TN.) – December 6, 2017: Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams will address attendees at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) summit this Thursday.

Adams will join other experts on December 7, 2017 to discuss election integrity policy reforms needed to address modern challenges.

“Elections can always be improved,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said. With so many non-citizens, dead registrants, and people who no longer live where they are listed, improvements are needed. State legislators can fix the problems, and it is important that they know about the tools available. Keeping voter rolls clean is thankfully an easier task in 2017 than it was in 1997. PILF’s Best Practices Guide summarizes the most effective tools to get the job done, if only states were to utilize them.”

Best Practices argues that in the quarter century since President Bill Clinton signed his first law, the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), “chronic inaccuracy and [a] lack of integrity in the voter rolls” has become the “most significant problem facing America’s electoral process.” Adams will discuss how fossilized federal standards locked administrators into a system of voter roll maintenance via First Class Mail—giving little allowance for adoption of contemporary technologies.

The PILF’s Best Practices report consists of the following suggestions:

  • Seek upgrades to statewide voter registration system software—some of which date back to the mid-2000s;
  • Engage with voter roll maintenance cooperatives like Voter Registration Crosscheck (IVRC) and Electronic Voter Registration Center (ERIC);
  • Perform statewide voter list audits;
  • Upgrade procedures for identifying deceased voters;
  • More closely follow federal datasets indicating voter relocation;
  • Perform annual voter outreach;
  • Perform voter education campaigns;
  • Provide improved online tools for self-updates of voter data;
  • Establish citizenship verification data sources;
  • Provide uniform updates of quarterly voter list maintenance, and more.

Access Best Practices for Achieving Integrity in Voter Registration, here.

Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is a 501(c)(3) public interest law firm dedicated to election integrity. The Foundation exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections. Drawing on numerous experts in the field, PILF seeks to protect the right to vote and preserve the Constitutional framework of American elections.

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Public Interest Legal Foundation