District of Columbia – The Voting News

District of Columbia Bill Would End Voter Registration As You Know It | Alex Burness/Bolts

September 16, 2022

Washington, D.C., may soon do away with voter registration as most Americans know it. Under a new bill, set to have its first council hearing on Friday, D.C. would mail ballots to people it knows are eligible, even if they are not registered. Drawing inspiration from Colorado, which many voting-rights experts characterize as the national standard for accessibility, the city would take information it collects when residents interact with the Department of Motor Vehicles and other agencies to maintain a constantly-updating list of people who are “preapproved” to vote. For people on that list, all there would be left to do is to vote come election time. “Traditionally, registration has been used as a way to keep people from voting,” Charles Allen, the D.C. councilmember who is sponsoring the legislation, told Bolts. “It’s a way to be a gatekeeper as to who you think should be able to vote.” Under Allen’s bill, voting itself would be the act of registration—at least for those the city identifies as prequalified. This would “make sure we are really reaching every single person we possibly can to make sure they can participate and have their voice heard,” Allen said.

Full Article: New Washington D.C. Bill Would End Voter Registration As You Know It | Bolts

District of Columbia: Wealthy Mobile Voting Advocate Targets Charles Allen with Negative Ads Over Legislative Dispute | Alex Koma/Washington City Paper

June 3, 2022

A venture capitalist and former Mike Bloomberg adviser is gearing up to launch an ad blitz against Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, aiming to pressure him into advancing mobile voting legislation that he’s sought to bottle up in his committee. Bradley Tusk’s nonprofit Tusk Philanthropies is planning a “significant, five-figure ad campaign to launch next week” pressuring Allen to at least hold a hearing on legislation aiming to let D.C. voters cast their ballots from their phones by 2024, a spokesperson for the group tells Loose Lips. The bill is spearheaded by Ward 2 Councilmember Brooke Pinto and co-introduced by seven other councilmembers. That’s generally a good indication of legislation’s success, but Allen has no interest in moving it out of his judiciary and public safety committee for a full Council vote. “The radio, TV, digital, and print campaign will strongly urge [Allen] to immediately hold a hearing on the bill, which would expand access to voting across the District,” the Tusk spokesperson wrote in a statement. The problem for Tusk (who has also worked as a political adviser to Uber and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer) is that Allen seems unlikely to budge. It’d be one thing if he was facing a competitive re-election (he’s currently running unopposed in the Democratic primary) but as it stands now, he doesn’t have much incentive to bend to the whims of a rich out-of-towner.

Full Article: Wealthy Mobile Voting Advocate Targets Charles Allen with Negative Ads Over Legislative Dispute – Washington City Paper

District of Columbia won’t move forward with a mobile voting measure | Aaron Schaffer/The Washington Post

April 18, 2022

Mobile voting won’t be a thing in D.C. anytime soon. A crucial member of the D.C. Council says he won’t move forward with a bill to expand voting by phone in the District, dealing a blow to an effort to expand mobile voting across the country. The course reversal is a victory for election security advocates who have long argued that the technology isn’t ready for a widespread rollout, even as proponents argue it would be an effective way to boost voter turnout and accessibility. The D.C. bill had support from eight members of the 13-person Council and groups like the D.C. branch of the NAACP. But council member Charles Allen’s (D-Ward 6) opinion of the bill was especially important for its future because he chairs a committee that the bill would have to advance through.

Full Article: D.C. won’t move forward with a mobile voting measure – The Washington Post

District of Columbia: New legislation could bring mobile voting but experts warn that the technology isn’t ready | Lauren Lumpkin/The Washington Post

February 25, 2022

New proposed legislation could bring mobile voting to the District, a measure that supporters say would enfranchise more eligible voters throughout the city. Meanwhile, some experts warn that the type of technology needed to support mobile voting on such a large scale isn’t ready and could further erode the public’s trust in elections. In December, several groups signed a letter to District officials urging them “not to adopt, test or develop internet voting of any kind.” … “The appeal is obvious. We all can agree that if there’s a safe way to make it as easy as possible for eligible voters to vote, we should do it. People very much want mobile voting to be that,” said Mark Lindeman, a director at Verified Voting, which focuses on election technology. “But we haven’t figured out a way to do it safely and verifiably.” Part of the problem stems from the way the Internet was created, Lindeman said. “The Internet still is, foundationally, what is was built to be by academics going back to the 1970s, and academics weren’t really thinking of building a system that was private and secure,” Lindeman said. Their priority, instead, was sharing information as quickly as possible. During an age in which millions of Americans bank and shop online, casting votes on the Internet may seem safe enough for some. But J. Alex Halderman, a University of Michigan professor and electronic voting expert, said standards for voting should be higher. “In banking, a certain amount of fraud is just accepted as the cost of doing business. But that’s just not how we view elections. We want there to be no fraud in elections,” Halderman said. “Frankly, it’s phenomenally retrograde to consider Internet voting in the present moment because we know sophisticated attackers have our election systems in their sights.”

Full Article: District bill could bring mobile voting to city in 2024 – The Washington Post

District of Columbia: New Bill Would Bring Mobile Voting To D.C. | Martin Austermuhle/DCist

February 25, 2022

A new bill in the D.C. Council would allow voters to cast ballots from their phones, tablets, or computers, which proponents say would simplify the voting process and enfranchise residents who are otherwise likely to sit out elections. The bill was introduced Friday by Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) and seven of her colleagues, and follows a push launched late last year by venture capitalist and former political operative Bradley Tusk to make D.C. the first place in the country to formally adopt mobile voting. … “There is currently no internet technology available that allows for the secure transmission of voted ballots while also maintaining voter privacy and ballot verifiability,” wrote Mark Lindeman, an expert on voting security and audits with Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group that focuses on elections and technology, in a recent letter to legislators in Rhode Island considering a bill to allow ballots to be returned over the internet. Additionally, local critics could point to D.C.’s checkered history with various technological advances. In mid-2020, the elections board quietly killed off its unreliable app that allowed voters to register to vote or change their registration; last month the board unveiled its first web-based option for online voter registration, though plans for another app have been delayed. Earlier this month, DC Health discontinued a new web portal that was supposed to allow residents to get access to their COVID-19 vaccine records after the system sent the wrong personal information to some people.

Full Article: New Bill Would Bring Mobile Voting To D.C. | DCist

District of Columbia: There’s A New Push For Mobile Voting In DC | Martin Austermuhle/DCist

December 10, 2021

You can pay bills, swipe into a Metro station, order a car, and do countless other things on your phone. And now venture capitalist and former political operative Bradley Tusk wants D.C. residents to be able to use their phones to vote. Tusk Philanthropies is bringing its mobile voting project to D.C., hoping to make the nation’s capital the first place in the country where residents can use phones and computers to cast ballots. Tusk, a former campaign advisor to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and one-time Uber official, has in recent years funded mobile-voting pilot programs across seven states — including Washington, West Virginia, and Oregon — largely to support overseas and military voters. But his effort in D.C. would represent the first push to make mobile voting a permanent part of elections for all voters. … Still, skeptics of mobile voting abound. They say that just like hackers can steal someone’s bank information or take over their social media accounts, they could wreak havoc on the civic exercise that makes democracy tick. “Study after study has found that internet voting has fundamental security vulnerabilities that simply haven’t been resolved at this point. And a lot of them are almost impossible to overcome given the current implementation of the internet, because the internet was never really designed with security in mind,” says Mark Lindeman, an expert on voting security and audits with Verified Voting, a nonpartisan group that focuses on elections and technology. Four federal agencies concluded as much in a May 2020 assessment, saying that “securing the return of voted ballots via the internet while ensuring ballot integrity and maintaining voter privacy is difficult, if not impossible, at this time.”

Full Article: There’s A New Push For Mobile Voting In DC

District of Columbia: Supreme Court Turns Away Bid For D.C. Voter Representation in Congress | Kaia Hubbard/Associated Press

October 5, 2021

The Supreme Court on Monday affirmed a lower court’s decision to rule against giving District of Columbia residents a voting member in the House of Representatives. Last year, a panel of judges ruled against a group of Washington residents who brought forward the case, seeking representation in the nation’s capital. “Because voting is a fundamental right and Congress has conferred that right on thousands of individuals who are not state residents – Applicants argue that voting representation must be extended to District residents,” the group’s attorney wrote. “Applicants’ suit thus challenged their denial of access to this fundamental right as a violation of their equal protection, due process, and first amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution.” The lower court’s decision held that residents of the District are not entitled to voting representation in the House of Representatives.

Source: Supreme Court Turns Away Bid For D.C. Voter Representation in Congress | National News | US News

Thousands March In D.C. For Voting Rights | Wynne Davis/NPR

August 31, 2021

Thousands of people gathered in Washington, D.C., and other cities across the country on Saturday to protest a recent slew of legislation that critics say suppresses voter rights, particularly for voters of color and young voters, in many Republican-led states. The event, called the March On For Voting Rights, took place on the 58th anniversary of the 1963 March On Washington when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech. Sunday’s event was organized by the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and partner organizations. Other events also took place in Atlanta, Miami and Phoenix. In D.C., participants gathered early Saturday in McPherson square, and marched to the National Mall for a rally with the U.S. Capitol as a backdrop. Organizers say the event drew thousands to Washington. William Birdo, 82, traveled to D.C. from Los Angeles to participate in Saturday’s march, and said he’d been protesting for civil rights for a half-century. “Ever since time, we’ve been fighting,” he said. “I’m from back there in the ’60s, when we really protested the wars, and voting rights and civil rights, and everything else. And we won, and we made progress.”

Full Article: Thousands March In D.C. For Voting Rights : NPR

District of Columbia: Several Capitol police officers suspended, more than a dozen under investigation over actions related to rally, riot | Aaron C. Davis, Rebecca Tan and Beth Reinhard/The Washington Post

January 12, 2021

Several U.S. Capitol Police officers have been suspended and more than a dozen others are under investigation for suspected involvement with or inappropriate support for the demonstration last week that turned into a deadly riot at the Capitol, according to members of Congress, police officials and staff members briefed on the developments. Eight separate investigations have been launched into the actions of Capitol officers, according to one congressional aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the status of the internal review. In one of the cases, officers had posted what Capitol Police investigators found to be messages showing support for the rally on Wednesday that preceded the attack on the complex, including touting President Trump’s baseless contention that the election had been stolen through voter fraud, the aide said. Investigators in another instance found that a Capitol officer had posted “inappropriate” images of President-elect Joe Biden on a social media account. The aide declined to describe the photographs. The scrutiny of the Capitol Police comes amid intensifying recriminations over why the complex was insufficiently protected when thousands of Trump supporters converged on Washington to protest the congressional action to certify Biden’s win. On Sunday, former Capitol police chief Steven Sund, who resigned after the attack, told The Washington Post in an interview that congressional security officials rebuffed his efforts to put the D.C. National Guard on standby before the joint session.

Full Article: Several Capitol police officers suspended, more than a dozen under investigation over actions related to rally, riot – The Washington Post

District of Columbia: Trump supporters protesting the election begin demonstrating in D.C. | Marissa J. Lang, Emily Davies, Peter Hermann, Jessica Contrera and Clarence Williams/The Washington Post

January 6, 2021

One day before Congress votes to certify that Joe Biden won the presidential election, Trump supporters who refuse to accept the reality of his defeat demonstrated in Washington again. The city is bracing for potentially violent protests, egged on by President Trump himself. All Tuesday afternoon, people bundled against the cold but free of masks arrived in downtown Washington for what they see as a last stand for Trump, who has continued to falsely assert that the election was stolen from him. Though many Republican lawmakers, all 10 living former defense secretaries and election officials across the country have said Trump should stop attempting to overturn the results of the election, his refusal to do so has only energized his followers. One Wednesday demonstration has a National Park Service permit for up to 30,000 people. Trump said on Twitter that he will speak at 11 a.m. Wednesday and praised those who were echoing his inaccurate version of events in the streets. “They won’t stand for a landslide election victory to be stolen,” he tweeted Tuesday evening.

Full Article: D.C. election protest: Trump supporters begin demonstrating ahead of congressional vote certification – The Washington Post

District of Columbia: Trump protesters warned not to carry guns as Washington DC calls up National Guard | The Guardian

January 5, 2021

The US capital has mobilised the National Guard ahead of planned protests by Donald Trump supporters in the lead-up to the congressional vote affirming Joe Biden’s election victory. Trump’s supporters are planning to rally on Tuesday and Wednesday, seeking to bolster the president’s unproven claims of widespread voter fraud. DC police have posted signs throughout downtown warning that carrying any sort of firearm is illegal and its acting police chief, Robert Contee, asked residents to warn authorities of anyone who might be armed. “There are people intent on coming to our city armed,” Contee said on Monday. Restrictions on carrying guns have been introduced for the area from Monday to Thursday this week. It comes as Enrique Tarrio, the leader of violent far-right group the Proud Boys, was arrested in DC and charged with destruction of property – related to a previous pro-Trump protest – and a firearms offence.

Source: Trump protesters warned not to carry guns as Washington DC calls up National Guard | US news | The Guardian

District of Columbia: Elections Board Signs Off On Plan To Mail Ballots To Every Registered Voter For November Election | Martin Austermuhle/DCist

July 21, 2020

The D.C. Board of Elections has signed off on a plan to mail every registered voter in the city a ballot ahead of the November election. The three-person board unanimously approved the plan on Friday afternoon, responding to criticism over flaws in the execution of the June primary, when voters were asked to request absentee ballots. The plan for November also includes doubling the number of vote centers for early and day-of voting, from 20 during the primary to 40 for the general, and the placement of ballot drop-boxes across the city. Election officials say they have already started laying the groundwork for a much more robust vote-by-mail election in November. Instead of mailing and receiving ballots as it did for the June primary, the elections board expects to contract the massive logistical operation out to a dedicated mail house, as most states that run vote-by-mail already do. That would also improve the ability of voters to track ballots as they are mailed out and returned, one area where the board itself had significant problems during the June primary.

District of Columbia: Some D.C. Residents Were Allowed To Vote By Email. Was That A Good Idea? | Martin Austermuhle/DCist

June 8, 2020

By Monday, Ward 6 resident Alex Dickson was running out of options. She had requested an absentee ballot for the following day’s primary election, but even after repeated promises from the D.C. Board of Elections that one had been sent, she had yet to receive it. By late that day, election officials offered her another option: She could vote by email. “What? OMG that’s crazy,” wrote Dickson in a Twitter exchange with an election official. But on Tuesday morning, that’s what she did. Faced with what is reported to have been hundreds of complaints from D.C. residents who said they never got requested absentee ballots in the mail, early this week the elections board decided to offer the chance to cast their ballots via email, using an existing service that had been used in the past — but only for a small group of voters with disabilities, and also for those in the military living overseas. The move came in the last-minute scramble to accommodate voters ahead of Tuesday’s primary, which was being conducted largely through the mail because of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the sudden shift in how the election was to be run — announced in late March, two months ahead of the primary — wasn’t without its challenges, leaving the elections board struggling to keep up with a huge number of requests for absentee ballots: more than 90,000 all told, roughly tenfold most normal election cycles.

District of Columbia: D.C.’s use of email voting shows what could go wrong in November | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

June 5, 2020

The District of Columbia’s last-minute decision to allow voting by email in this week’s primary is sounding warning bells for election security hawks. The practice puts election results at higher risk of hacking because there’s no way for voters to verify their votes were recorded accurately, they say. And the scramble is a disturbing preview of how election officials beset by challenges may bargain away security if they’re not better prepared by November. “Between now and November, the D.C. board and any other jurisdiction that’s paying attention to what happened [Tuesday] needs to be absolutely focusing their energies on ramping up voting by mail capacities,” Edward Perez, global director of technology development at OSET Institute, a nonprofit election technology organization, told me. “And they need to do it now, now, now. Not in July or August, and definitely not in September.”

District of Columbia: Voters in D.C. primary face long lines, crowds at polls | Julie Zauzmer and Fenit Nirappil/The Washington Post

June 3, 2020

D.C. voters braved waits longer than four hours to cast ballots in a city primary election upended by coronavirus and demonstrations against police violence. The District attempted to shift to a mostly by-mail election to reduce the risk of spreading the virus. But many voters never received the absentee ballots they requested and the city shuttered most of its usual polling places, resulting in lines stretching for blocks. Results of the election were not available hours after polls closed at 8 p.m., to allow for the voters still waiting in line to cast their ballots. Initial results were not expected until early Wednesday. A 7 p.m. curfew the mayor imposed as protests continued to sweep the city halted public transportation and forced some voters to come up with alternative travel plans, and caused confusion when an officer improperly told voters lined up at a Georgetown-area polling place to go home. But residents said they were determined to exercise their voting rights in pivotal local council races and the presidential primary, with some citing the demonstrations against the police killing of George Floyd as inspiration.

District of Columbia: Voters report difficulty getting mail-in ballots for Tuesday primary | Julie Zauzmer/The Washington Post

June 2, 2020

As the District attempts to carry out a primary election on Tuesday like none before — one in which officials, mindful of the coronavirus pandemic, have shrunk the number of Election Day voting locations and urged residents to instead vote by mail — the D.C. Board of Elections resorted over the weekend to an unusual personalized approach. Staff members drove around the District hand-delivering ballots to some voters at their homes. The tour of the city with cars full of ballots was just one more unexpected event in a primary election that the Board of Elections has struggled to manage. Some Washingtonians have complained that the process of obtaining a mail-in ballot has been difficult or impossible for them — and the idea of voting in person during a pandemic is fraught. The Board of Elections has received absentee ballot requests from 92,093 residents — approaching the number of total voters in the 2016 Democratic primary. As of Sunday, 37,000 ballots have been mailed back, said Rachel Coll, a spokeswoman for the Board of Elections. Voters have until Tuesday to mail in their ballots, which will be counted if they are received within seven days of the election. Those who haven’t yet voted by mail or during early voting can vote in person Tuesday at one of the 20 voting centers set up in place of the usual polls at 143 precincts.

District of Columbia: Officials To Encourage Absentee Voting By Mail, Limit In-Person Voting For June Primary | Martin Austermuhle/WAMU

March 30, 2020

D.C. officials say they plan on encouraging more residents to use absentee ballots to vote by mail and will limit the number of physical voting sites for the June 2 primary. The changes are part of a plan to let the primary proceed as planned, while also addressing concerns raised by the coronavirus pandemic. “We have two major priorities during this unprecedented emergency. One, make sure D.C. voters and D.C. Board of Elections staff and poll workers remain safe. Number two, make sure voters have an opportunity to vote and every vote is counted,” D.C. Board of Elections Chair Michael Bennett said on Friday. Bennett said they’re asking as many voters as possible to request absentee ballots, which require no excuse or explanation. They can be requested online or through the election board’s app, and the city will also open phone centers for anyone who wants to call to request a ballot. Those ballots, which will be ready for distribution by May 1, can be mailed in or dropped off at designated locations.

District of Columbia: D.C. is slated to vote last in 2020 Democratic primaries. That might change. | The Washington Post

February 7, 2019

At it stands, Democratic voters in Washington, D.C., will be last in the nation to weigh in on who should challenge Donald Trump in 2020’s presidential contest. But some local politicos want to change that. At a meeting Thursday, the D.C. Democratic State Committee will consider whether to recommend moving up the District’s primary from June 16 to April 28, or some other early spring date. “If you want to be competitive in the democratic process, you need to be early up,” said D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), who represents the District on the Democratic National Committee. Evans and others have long argued that an earlier primary would draw national attention to the city’s lack of representation in Congress and spark more enthusiasm from local voters.

District of Columbia: D.C. Council declines to take up bill to lower voting age to 16 | The Washington Post

November 14, 2018

The D.C. Council indefinitely delayed action on legislation to lower the voting age to 16, dealing a blow to efforts to make the nation’s capital the first jurisdiction to allow minors to cast ballots in presidential contests. Lawmakers voted 7 to 6 to table the bill, imperiling its chances before an end-of-year deadline to pass legislation. The voting bill hit a setback after a pair of lawmakers who helped introduce the legislation — Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) and Anita Bonds (D-At Large) — flipped positions and declined to vote for it. … Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) had backed the proposal but distanced herself from the measure before the vote.

District of Columbia: DC files suit to get votes in Congress | WTOP

November 6, 2018

A lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of D.C. residents in a new bid to put legal pressure on Congress to give the District of Columbia full voting rights and representation on Capitol Hill. As millions of Americans head to the polls on Tuesday, advocates pointed out that District residents are still not able to cast votes for both a Senator and member of the House of Representatives. “This lawsuit says that it’s not just unfair and un-American, but it’s unconstitutional that people who live in the District of Columbia do not have the vote,” said Walter Smith, executive director of the DC Appleseed Center for Law & Justice. “It’s time to fix that.”

District of Columbia: D.C. Council committee approves bill to lower voting age to 16 | WJLA

November 2, 2018

The D.C. Council Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety passed the bill to lower the voting age to 16 in D.C. with a unanimous 3-0 vote Thursday. With Committee approval, the bill will now be placed on the agenda of the Nov. 13 City Council Legislative Meeting, where it will be voted on by the full council. Vote16DC, a coalition of youth, adult allies, and organizations that support granting voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds in the District, has spent months leading up to this committee vote mobilizing community support and educating Councilmembers on the merits of lowering DC’s voting age to 16.

District of Columbia: DC awarded $3 million for new election security & upgrades, $0 spent as midterms loom | WUSA

September 10, 2018

It was a clarion call from the White House briefing room, that the threat from Russia was real. The nation’s top national intelligence officials took to the West Wing podium, as Director of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen encapsulated the message in stark terms. “Our democracy is in the crosshairs,” Nielsen said. She added, “we have seen a willingness and a capability on the part of the Russians,” to hack the American election infrastructure, including voter rolls and voting machines. But only six blocks from the August news conference, the urgency may not have seemed apparent, with the D.C. Council in summer recess, and a $3 million election security grant waiting to be approved. With less than 60 days before the midterm elections, the District has spent $0 of the $3 million grant, according to interviews and documents reviewed by WUSA9.

District of Columbia: DC teens could get right to vote | WTOP

June 29, 2018

Sixteen- and 17-year-olds in D.C. may become the youngest Americans eligible to vote in the 2020 presidential election. A bill backed by a majority of the members of the D.C. Council would lower the city’s voting age to 16. Takoma Park, Greenbelt and Hyattsville in Maryland have lowered the voting age to 16 and proponents in D.C. say the teenagers have become energized voting blocks in those communities (though they can only vote in municipal elections there). The D.C. measure would amend the city’s 1955 Election Code to allow 16- and 17-year-olds voting rights — and it makes no exception for presidential voting. It would also require every school in the city to provide its 16-year-old students a voter registration application.

District of Columbia: DC may let 16-year-olds vote for president. Is that a good idea? | NBC

April 17, 2018

High school students marched to protest for gun control after the Parkland shooting in Florida and soon they might be marching straight to the voting booth in the nation’s capital. Washington is on track to become the first place in the country to allow people as young as 16 to vote in federal elections, including for president, as the nation glimpses the emerging political power of the generation that follows millennials. It’s part of a burgeoning movement in the U.S. and abroad as a growing number of cities and states consider ways to expand voting rights to younger people.

District of Columbia: Vote At 16? D.C. Bill Would Lower Voting Age For Both Local And Federal Elections | WAMU

April 11, 2018

A bill set to be introduced in the D.C. Council on Tuesday would lower the voting age for both local and federal elections from 18 to 16. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who is introducing the bill, says that given all the other responsibilities 16-year-olds already have, they should also have the right to vote on who represents them. “At the age of 16, our society already gives young people greater legal responsibility. They can drive a car. They can work. Some are raising a family or helping their family make ends meet. They pay taxes,” he said in a statement. “And yet, they can’t exercise their voice where it matters most — at the ballot box.”

District of Columbia: A driver’s license in D.C. will soon come with a perk: automatic voter registration | The Washington Post

June 1, 2017

Every District resident over the age of 18 who gets a driver’s license would become automatically registered to vote under a spending plan the D.C. Council is expected to give final approval to later this month. The spending plan, which advanced easily on Tuesday, would mean the District would join eight states with automatic voter registration. Many Democratic lawmakers embraced automatic registration as a way to counter restrictive voter ID laws supported by some conservatives. Government groups have also pressed states to link voter registration with other government databases, saying doing so would help clean up inaccurate state voter rolls. Lawmakers in 32 states have introduced measures in the last year to automatically register drivers to vote.

District of Columbia: D.C. to spend $3 million to get names of dead people, other errors off voter rolls | The Washington Post

May 17, 2017

D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) plans to spend $3 million to overhaul the city’s voter registration database, a file that is riddled with errors, including the names of deceased residents and thousands of voters whose births erroneously date to the 1800s, according to a recent audit. The move comes as President Trump launches a commission on “election integrity” to cut down on voter fraud, but city officials say that is a coincidence. “There is no connection. This decision was made well before President Trump’s election integrity commission,” Bowser spokesman Kevin Harris said Tuesday.

District of Columbia: Republican-led Congress denies D.C. delegate a vote. Again. | The Washington Post

January 4, 2017

On the first day of the 115th Congress, members buzzed Tuesday about the repeal of President Obama’s health-care law, tax reform and whether to gut the ethics office. All Eleanor Holmes Norton wanted to discuss was a vote. And a symbolic one at that. For the fourth consecutive session, Norton (D), the nonvoting D.C. representative, formally asked the speaker of the House for the ability to vote on amendments and procedural issues. Again, she was thwarted. This time, she brought D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) and a veterans advocate with her. Norton pushed for a vote in the Committee of the Whole as “a down payment on full voting rights for the more than 680,000 American citizens residing in the District of Columbia, who pay the highest federal income taxes per capita in the United States and have fought and died in every American war, yet have no vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, ‘the people’s house,’ ” she said.

District of Columbia: DC Council bill makes voter registration automatic | WJLA

November 3, 2016

Most of us dread going to the DMV, but the D.C. Council hopes your next trip to renew or update your license might help increase voter turnout. On Tuesday, Council members unanimously approved legislation making voter registration automatic. The veto-proof D.C. Council bill is now waiting for Mayor Muriel Bowser’s signature. The pending law would automatically send District Department of Motor Vehicles data to the D.C. Board of Elections. “At a time in our country, when we see states time and time again try to block people from the poll, from the ballot box, I’m really proud that in D.C. we actually are trying to make it easy as possible and get as many people registered to vote as we can,” said Ward 6 Council member Charles Allen who introduced the bill.

District of Columbia: DC Council considers rush on New Columbia statehood constitution | WTOP

September 28, 2016

One step closer to statehood, the D.C. Council heard and discussed what could be the state constitution for “New Columbia.” “The question is not why statehood, but what it should look like,” said D.C. council member Mary Cheh during Tuesday’s hearing. To create the state of New Columbia, the citizens of the District are following what’s called the “Tennessee Plan.” “The citizens, of in this case of the District, get their proposal together before they petition Congress for admission into the union,” Council Chair Phil Mendelson explained at the hearing’s outset. But there’s little time to waste to get the referendum to voters by Nov. 8. It will need to be approved by voters in November to be sent to Congress. It’s a big job to be done in a small window of time.