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When a baby is born in the US the parents can easily request a Social Security number for the child and most parents do this. Each state records births. These infants are US citizens, not other proof required. Why can't this information be used to automatically register a child to vote on their 18th birthday? Obviously, the system would have to verify a local address so the person is registered to vote in the proper location but computers can actually be programmed to do remarkable things.

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author

Some states do a form of this called preregistration, capturing high school students before they turn 18 to make sure they don't have to do anything else. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/vrm-states-pre-registration-states

What you describe is aligned with that, and AVR, but would be even more ambitious, since it would capture people who never interact with state governments. I think it is logistically possible (government agencies and private databases have our address info) but would probably be broader than what is allowed under the NVRA.

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Sep 20, 2023Liked by Don Moynihan

I forgot about the high school students preregistration. Maybe it's time to expand the NVRA but that would only be possible if Democrats control the WH, the House and the Senate.

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author

Yep - the big lesson is you reduce burdens when you can as much as you can. Shapiro is using executive power to employ AVR and getting pushback from state republicans, but its really unlikely they would have supported him doing something even more ambitious

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