Yesterday I posted about my adventures in voter registration at the grocery store with “completely non-partisan” voter drive groups. In case you missed it, here’s the video I shot:
This turn of events left me wondering just how some random group or person can set up a folding card table at a grocery store and register people to vote. So I hit the NC State Board of Elections site in search of answers. I did not like what I found.
First of all, anyone who wants to (and I do mean anyone) can get a box of 1,000 voter registration forms mailed to them simply by filling out the order form. By the way, the form actually says, “Forms come in boxes of 1000, so please round off your request to the nearest 1000.”
Second, there is no tracking of what becomes of these forms – filled in or unused. You can view the registration form here. Note: you must have a driver’s license number or Social Security number (last 4 digits only) to complete the form.
This screenshot is taken from the Voter Registration Drives: A Citizen’s Guide.
If you’re having a hard time making out the text highlighted in Blue, it says this:
“We do not require unused forms to be returned. However, these forms are printed at a cost to the state.”
Right below that the paragraph reads:
“If you do not have a large number of forms that you do not plan to use, please return them to your local county board of elections office or to the State Board of Elections.”
Uh… What?
There appear to be no checks and balances in place for these free-for-all voter drives whatsoever and our tax dollars are paying for these forms to be printed up. They don’t require unused ones to be returned? That’s not only a waste of tax payer funds, that is inviting fraud and abuse. Given that anyone can run a voter drive, who is to say they don’t just chuck the forms returned to them of the party affiliation they disagree with?
I’m rather disturbed at the incredibly slack and irresponsible manner with which NC seems to treat Voter Registration. To the reader: Have you checked the voter registration process out in your state?
Related Links:
Register to Vote and Grocery Shop. Seems Legit. (Video)
LL1885 
Let’s say 1 in every 10 people in North Carolina—every man, woman and child—ask for one of these boxes of 1,000 voter registration forms. Never mind the fact that the result would be over 100x more voter registration forms (965 million) than there could ever be voters (something less than 9,650,000, the number of NC residents), and that not in your wildest dreams of government incompetence is the NC state government going to print nearly one billion voter registration forms.
But let’s, for the sake of argument, assume just that. Apparently, we can get 5,000 sheets of paper for $30 (http://www.nextag.com/HP-Office-Impressions-Copy-659890647/prices-html). Let’s ignore the bulk discount the state government undeniably gets, and say that the state government pays consumer price for its 965 million voter registration forms. The paper costs of 965 million sheets would therefore be $5,970,000. That’s a shitload, isn’t it? You know what? Let’s even double it, and say that due to mailing, printing and labor the cost comes to $11,940,000.
It’s a tax burden per resident of about $1.24.
Let’s consider the fact that the state government isn’t producing anywhere *near* 965 million voter registration forms, that the population of North Carolina is roughly 9,650,000, and that a major chunk of those not-quite-10 million are already registered or cannot register, and that at the absolute most the state government is producing 1/100 of that 965 million. Let’s consider the fact that the state government is not paying shelf price for paper or printing, both of which they’re doing in bulk. Let’s consider the fact that the truly disturbing issue of the tax burden associated with producing voter registration forms has not yet, shockingly, reached national significance.
The tax burden to the individual of this profligate policy is at absolute most, a bit more than one cent per person. So “tax dollars” is something of a misnomer, here. “Tax cent” is more appropriate.
You would have done better to focus on the potential for those who choose to register voters to throw away registrations to political parties they disagree with, rather than watering down your article with some knee-jerk profligacy argument that you could’ve (and should’ve) researched, just a bit. Yet another reason why we should be registering voters automatically at their 18th birthdays like the rest of the democratic world.
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Wow, that’s quite a snarky diatribe! Thanks for telling me all those great facts about my own state that I already knew! You forgot to tell me there are 6,341,732 registered voters in NC as of the end of July this year. Not bad for a state with 9,656,401 (from the last census which you clearly looked up). The math lesson was superb. However, you should have done some research yourself and figured out that the online ‘print version’ I linked to isn’t the same as the ones they mail out; it’s not a simple one page form. You also didn’t include printing costs or the shipping costs. All of that is beside the point that these forms are paid for by the tax payers and just being thrown out there with no accountability as to what happens to them once they leave the BOE offices. That was the point, thanks for missing it.
I don’t disagree about the registering to vote at 18, by the way.
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A snarky diatribe for a snarky blog. I don’t see the problem with my tone in the context of articles like Say What? (https://ladyliberty1885.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/say-what-5-1-12-things-they-didnt-say/).
I didn’t forget to include printing and shipping costs: “Let’s even double it, and say that due to mailing, printing and labor the cost comes to $11,940,000.”—an assumption that is all but guaranteed to be an overestimation. The number of pages, too, isn’t particularly important, unless we’re really arguing over whether the tax burden of producing voter registration forms is one cent per person or three.
Nor did I miss your point. *My* point is this: you have a legitimate concern (the fate of voter registration forms) couched in a highly unimportant one (the cost of voter registration forms). I’ll put it this way: would anything be solved if the costs of producing voter registration forms magically became zero, and thus none of your tax cents went into producing them?
Not having to return the forms, as you understand (but other readers may not), means that there’s no way to tell whether some volunteers could be throwing out registrations they don’t like. That has nothing to do with taxpayer dollars. So why are you talking about them? It isn’t even a question of ownership: voting is not a service the government provides. It’s governance. So why not focus on the real problem?
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Touche’… however, the piece you commented on really didn’t warrant it. I admit I missed the line where you added labor/printing and shipping. That’s my bad. The point that these forms can just disappear never to be heard from again has not slipped my mind nor is it unmentioned in the piece – perhaps you missed this paragraph or are just choosing to give me a hard time for the Hell of it:
“There appear to be no checks and balances in place for these free-for-all voter drives whatsoever and our tax dollars are paying for these forms to be printed up. They don’t require unused ones to be returned? That’s not only a waste of tax payer funds, that is inviting fraud and abuse. Given that anyone can run a voter drive, who is to say they don’t just chuck the forms returned to them of the party affiliation they disagree with?”
Did it occur to you, before you decided to jump on my head, that I’m not done writing about this? 🙂 This is after all, a 2nd article based on a first one…
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