New Poll Shows How America Feels About Simpler Voter Registration

Over the course of the last several months, Americans have been involved in a serious discussion about the way in which we hold our elections, due in no small part to the way in which former President Donald Trump protested the results of the 2020 election.

Trump was adamant that the contest had been stolen from from, thanks to either clandestine rigging by Dominion Voting Systems, or via Democratically-installed balloting policies meant to stack the deck against the Republicans.  To this day, that latter discussion is raging, with the GOP calling for more voter ID laws and a stricter grip on who is actually voting on election day.  The Republican Party is concerned about the possibility of voter fraud, where the Democrats insist that the issue is too minute to concern themselves with.

The American people seem to have a bit of a more benevolent view of the situation, according to a new poll.

Democrats’ proposals to overhaul voting in the U.S. won solid — although not overwhelming — support from Americans in a new survey measuring the popularity of major pieces of the sweeping legislation in Congress.

The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll found about half of Americans support expanding access to early and mail voting, while about 3 in 10 opposed the ideas and the rest had no opinion. Automatic voter registration was the most popular Democratic proposal in the survey, endorsed by 60% of Americans.

Generally, the partisan divide was stark, as many Republicans opposed measures that make is easier to register and vote and most Democrats embraced them. About three-quarters of Democrats supported no-excuse voting by mail, for example, but about 6 in 10 Republicans were opposed.

There was one striking exception: Nearly three-quarters of all Americans — including majorities of both parties — said they support laws requiring voters to present photo identification, even as the Democratic proposal would ease those laws.

Of course, in the ideal American election, every eligible voter would vote, and no ineligible voters would have even the possibility to try.  But, in reality, this tug of war between the left and the right on voter registration appears to put ideals against ideals, using reality as argumentative leverage against one another.