Rhode Island

In the near future, when you renew your driver’s license at the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles, you can also register to vote. Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea answered our questions about automatic voter registration becoming law — signed by Gov. Gina Raimondo this week — which will allow people doing business at the Division of Motor Vehicles to also register to vote. “I pushed for it because it is a great way for Rhode Islanders when they update their addresses with the government that that address change is made across the board into their voter file,” Gorbea said Friday during a taping of “10 News Conference.”

Gov. Gina M. Raimondo has signed legislation that makes Rhode Island the ninth state to allow automatic-voter-registration. The legislation championed by Secretary of State Nellie M. Gorbea would automatically place on the voter rolls anyone doing business with the Division of Motor Vehicles, and potentially other state offices, unless they decline. If the new system works as designed, it will update the central voter registration database, as voters change their home city and town addresses on the drivers licenses and registration, removing the potential “duplicates” from the voter rolls.

Legislation to automatically put anyone who applies for a Rhode Island driver’s license on the state’s voter rolls, unless they opt out, cleared the state House of Representatives on Wednesday, despite GOP efforts to block the same practice at other state agencies with troubled computer histories. In the end, the vote was unanimous for the legislation championed by Secretary of State Nellie Gorbea, the governor and a long list of groups, including the NAACP, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause Rhode Island, Young Democrats of R.I., and the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island.