CommonWealth: Election Day voter registration is good for democracy

PM Issues Committee chair Jonathan Cohn penned an editorial for CommonWealth in honor of National Voter Registration Day today:

TODAY — THE FOURTH Tuesday of September—is National Voter Registration Day. It’s also the day that Boston voters will go to the polls for hotly contested preliminary elections for City Council.

If the past is any guide, turnout will be low (we’ll be lucky if it passes 10 percent), a product of both apathy and design.

We all have work to do to counter the apathy that drives low voter participation and to build a stronger civic culture. However, that’s a multi-year, ongoing process. Eliminating the barriers that exist by design is much simpler.

Take, for example, our 20-day voter registration cutoff date….

Jonathan Cohn

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Chris Lisinski, “Mass. House unanimously approves Parentage Equality Bill,” State House News Service, June 12. “The bill , long a priority for civil rights and LGBTQ activists, would create new