FILE – Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)AP
By Amy Worden | aworden@pennlive.com (thanks to Pam P.)
Gov. Josh Shapiro on Tuesday announced that Pennsylvania will become the 24th state to implement automatic voter registration.
In an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Shapiro said everyone who goes to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a new or renewed driver’s license will be automatically registered to vote, unless the individual chooses to opt out.
“It’s a safe, secure, streamlined way to get them to register and participate in our democracy,” said Shapiro, speaking on National Voter Registration Day.
Shapiro said there are 1.7 million Pennsylvanians who are eligible to vote but are not registered. He said Secretary of State Al Schmidt estimated there would be tens of thousands of new registrants in the first year.
Shapiro said he has spent his career fighting for the right to vote and that he was “proud” to fulfill a campaign promise.
There are 8.6 million registered voters in Pennsylvania, according to information from the Department of State. More than 10 million Pennsylvanians out of 13 million total are at least 18 years old, the minimum legal age to vote, according to U.S. Census figures.
States have been required to offer voter registration at driver’s license centers since Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act in 1993.
A 2021 study by researchers from the Public Policy Institute of California, the University of Southern California and the University of California-Berkeley found that automatic voter registration increased registration in states where it was in effect, and boosted the number of people actually voting by more than 1%.