HB 2177 Automatic Voter Registration

VOTE:NO
Signed into Law

HB 2177 Intro  has a minus 10 rating. The lowest rating for a bill from Oregon Citizens Lobby! HB 2177 eliminates the voter registration process as we know it. It is Oregon’s version of Automaticl Voter Registration. Under this bill, people will not register themselves. The state will accertain the data from the DMV and automatically register them to vote!  Your signature will come from the DMV files.

HB 2177 violates citizens freedoms because:
1. PERSONAL CHOICE: It takes away Oregon citizen’s ability to determine how they will be involved in elections.  Their private DMV information will transfer to a public voter database. Citizens will only have 3 weeks to respond before their data is added to the public list. They may NOT OPT OUT at DMV. Citizens should be the ones in control of where their data is entered, not the government deciding for them.
2. PRIVACY SECURITY: Election Division data was hacked twice this in the last year. This is a vulnerability to any data base. The data being transferred includes the voter’s signature. We see data breach vulnerability as an ongoing threat in our society, as in the NSA security breaches, the Oregon Elections Data breaches, and in businesses we deal with everyday. There are various reasons why some people do not want their private information in a public database.
3. NOT FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY, LESSENS LOCAL CONTROL: HB 2177 will cost $1.5 Million dollars. That’s just to get it implemented and has an IOU attached to the bill. Some members of the legislature say they are committed to paying for this implementation but funding has not been allocated and will not be until well after the bill is passed or fails. In a state that boasts one of the highest voter participation rates in the country, why force counties that barely afford to protect their citizens, to pay for these changes?
4.  DOES NOT LIMIT GOVERNMENT: This bill takes the Legislative oversight on voter qualifications and shifts it to the Executive branch. The bill says the Secretary of State will decide ‘by rule’ what to extract from the DMV records. This process can change from Secretary to Secretary. Promises made by one Secretary are not required to be kept by the next one.

 

 

 

No tags for this post.

Comments are closed.