The BGA applauds Tuesday’s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit reinstating Election Day in-precinct voter registration, halting a previous order from a lower court that barred it.
If the ruling stands, thousands of voters across Illinois will be able to utilize Election Day registration at polling places. In the March 2016 primary, more than 100,000 Illinois residents, including Democrats and Republicans, to advantage of EDR to register and vote.
Andy Shaw, President and CEO of the Better Government Association, said that “too many Illinois residents are disengaged from the democratic process and we pay a high price for that. We need more engaged voters, not fewer. We need to make the process of voting easier, not harder. Let’s expand election day registration to polling places that don’t have it, not take it away from polling places that do.”
BGA joined a group of voting rights advocates, including the ACLU of Illinois, Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, League of Women Voters of Illinois, and the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, to file an amicus brief in August urging the court to reject efforts to eliminate EDR so close to the November general election.
