Voting & Democracy News

WASHINGTON, May 4, 2009 – Millions of taxpayer dollars and countless local election official hours are wasted because of our cumbersome voter registration system, a new study from the U.S.PIRG Education Fund study has found.

“Saving Dollars, Saving Democracy,” a new report due out on May 6, shows that over $33,467,910.00 of public money from 100 counties was spent only on simple registration implementation and error-correction issues in 2008, and it is clear that this is only the tip of the iceberg.

“Too much time, effort, and money is spent at the local level reacting to and paying for our paper-driven, mistake-riddled registration process,” says U.S.PIRG Education Fund Democracy Advocate, Lisa Gilbert, author of the report.

“Our local election officials should be able to use the funds that our counties allot for the actual administration of elections, rather than for the endless data-entry and error correction processes created by our current registration system,” Gilbert added.

The U.S. PIRG Education Fund recommends implementing a modernized automatic registration system to help eliminate some of the burdens local officials bear.
 
“It is time to put these taxpayer dollars into activities that promote our democracy instead of into entering forms,” Gilbert added.

“Saving Dollars, Saving Democracy” will be released this Wednesday across the country and on U.S. PIRG’s website.