The Purposes of Voter Registration
In a very useful discussion about the process, William Kimberling suggests three primary
purposes of registering voters:
- to prevent electoral fraud
- to identify all qualified voters
- to support other functions of the electoral system
This last purpose includes the recognition of political parties, sizing electoral districts, deciding
the number and location of polling places, identifying the number of ballots to print, and
providing information about the election to voters.35
Although historically these various purposes have had different levels of importance from one
time, place or circumstance to another, each has played an important role in the adoption of
procedures for voter registration. This section will briefly examine the development of voter
registration systems over time, with particular attention to their origins.
Registering Voters in Ancient Greece
Many of our modern ideas about democracy have evolved from early experiments in
self-government practiced in Athens and elsewhere in Greece over a thousand years ago. From
the sixth to the fourth century B.C., Athenian society originated a system of voter registration
that distinguished the economic community from the political community. Society was
comprised of three different orders or classes of people--citizens, resident foreigners, and slaves.
All three classes were able to participate in the economic community, although in the case of
slaves all property was formally considered part of the of the master's. Participation in the
political community (the polis), however, was limited to citizens. And citizenship was limited to
males who had attained the age of majority, ostensibly eighteen years. With two years of
compulsory military service, however, participation in the affairs of the polis was acquired
de facto at twenty years of age.36
Identifying Qualified Voters
The distinctions among the three orders of the community, and the enfranchisement only of
male citizens, meant that it was necessary to identify citizens. In the process, the second purpose
of voter registration was achieved, namely, to identify all qualified voters. Prior to Kleisthenes's
rule in 510 B.C., Athenian citizenship was a prized but disputed designation, given the high
levels of residential mobility and the advancing political rights associated with it. Citizenship
was controlled by a small number of aristocratic families. Kleisthenes introduced reforms at the
end of the sixth century B.C., however, that conferred citizenship upon descendants of Athenian
men who were registered in local Athenian political communities (demes).37
Under these reforms, it became the responsibility of the demes to maintain the register of
their citizen members.38 Other registers such as the register of resident foreigners
(metics) also were maintained. Among other uses, this helped facilitate the collection of
the metic tax. But since only citizens had the right to vote, the register of citizens in
effect became the electoral register, or the voters list.
Preventing Fraud
Athenian citizens voted by attending the Assembly, and the inclusion of one's name on the
citizen register was necessary to gain entry to the Assembly. This procedure also helped fulfill
the first purpose of electoral registration listed above, namely, preventing electoral fraud by
preventing non-citizens (i.e., the ineligible) from participating in political discussions in the
Assembly and voting. In fact, the penalty for electoral fraud could be especially harsh.
Unauthorized persons caught trying to participate in an Assembly meeting would be arrested
and brought before the people's court, which could condemn them to death.39
Other Purposes of the Register
In time, a number of governmental administrative functions were devolved to the demes.
These included the recognition and registration of new citizens. And, although the Athenian
army was organized by tribes (of which there were ten), rather than by demes (of which
there were 139), the actual drafting, or 'call-up', of young men for compulsory military service
was administered by the demes through the use of the citizen register.40 Even
during the ancient period of democratic development, then, the documents used for the electoral
register, or voters list, also fulfilled each of the three primary functions of such registers.
Voter Registration in the Modern Era
In modern democracies, voter registration originated in Britain with the Reform Act of
1832.41 The reasons for this development appear to have been the growing urbanization
of British society coupled with the complexity of laws regarding eligibility of citizens to vote.
By the election of 1910, for instance, there were seven distinct franchises in Britain--the
property, freemen, university, occupation, household, service and lodgers franchises. The voters
lists functioned primarily to identify qualified voters. An estimate that fully one quarter of all
eligible voters were not included on the voters list indicates that this function was poorly served
at that time.42 In view of the fact that the franchise in Britain was gradually expanding
over nearly a century (1832 to 1918) from a small and selective proportion of the total
electorate to near-universal adult suffrage, the electoral register, or voters list, was also fulfilling
its second purpose of preventing electoral fraud among the ineligible electorate.
Other corrupt political practices persisted, however, such as the designation of 'rotten boroughs'
that allowed very few eligible voters. The administration of elections improved substantially
with the passage of the Representation of the People Act of 1918. In particular, local
government officials were assigned the responsibility to maintain the voters lists. As the
twentieth century draws to a close, though, the system of voter registration in Britain seems
increasingly dated. It still tends to maintain an annual cut-off date for the continuous voter list
that results in a list that ranges from four to sixteen months out of date at any given
time.43 The increasing residential mobility of the population, together with significant
strides that have been made elsewhere in maintaining a much more current voters list, has
produced a resolve in Westminster to improve the administration of elections, and in particular
to examine changes to the voter registration process. Although it is too early to know the exact
nature of these reforms, it seems likely that significant changes will occur.
The American Experience with Voter Registration
Similar to the British experience, the early years of representative democracy in the United
States did not employ the use of a formal system for voter registration. Through the Jacksonian
era in American politics (1820s to 1840s), towns and villages were still small enough that voter
registration was viewed as unnecessary. In general, election officials were drawn from the local
community and typically knew who the voters were and whether they lived in the area. Ballots
were then distributed based on this informal personal information.44
Three developments appear to have had a significant impact on the movement for a more
rigorous system of voter registration in the United States. The first was the growing
urbanization of the population, and with it the decreasing ability of election officials to know
personally the eligible voters in a district. Second, rapid growth in the immigrant population,
especially in northern cities, contributed to the insidious influence of increasingly corrupt
political party machines. Third, the abolition of slavery following the end of the American Civil
War in 1865 prompted many jurisdictions, particularly in the southern states, to seek ways of
limiting the ability of blacks to participate and vote in elections. Relatively stringent voter
registration requirements, coupled with poll taxes, literacy tests and the like, all contributed to
this administrative exclusion effort.45
Registration as a Means of Limiting the Electorate
A common thread in the early years of voter registration systems in the United States, then,
appears to be a desire to limit the number of people eligible to vote. In fact, the concern with
electoral fraud among immigrant populations and among political parties, as well as a concern
with limiting the voting rights of newly enfranchised blacks, eventually led to the development
of a highly individualistic voter registration system being adopted in the United States. In the
view of Teixeira, the personal registration statutes initially adopted in the United States, 'made the mechanisms of voting more difficult for many Americans. These statutes functioned as barriers to mass participation by requiring individual voters to negotiate a series of bureaucratic obstacles in order to be permitted to vote.'46
More recently, the United States has made significant progress in decreasing the barriers to voter
registration and to participation in elections. Perhaps ironically, this has not led to a
concomitant increase in political participation. American courts played an active role in
breaking down the barriers to voter registration for blacks during the 1950s and 1960s, and they
were supported by Congress and the administration with the passage of the Voting Rights Act in
1964, a sweeping federal law requiring the registration of all eligible black voters. More
recently, during the 1990s, the adoption of the Motor Voter Act (the National Voter Registration
Act of 1993) has standardized and simplified voter registration by incorporating it in the
registration and licensing process to drive a motor vehicle. The voter registration system in the
United States clearly has moved steadily from one intended to prevent electoral fraud, with
unfortunate pitfalls of administrative exclusion, to one designed to facilitate voting by
identifying all eligible voters and promoting administrative inclusion.
Adopting Voter Registration Procedures in All Democracies
All democracies have their own historical experience with adopting procedures for registering
voters. In some cases, such as Sweden, it involved an early experiment with the development of
a civil register that could be used for a variety of other socioeconomic purposes (such as
universal health care and taxation rolls) as well as for voter registration. In emerging
democracies, whether in Central Europe, Latin America, Asia, or Africa, election authorities
have been required to confront basic questions about the administrative apparatus to put in place
for conducting elections, including the mechanisms to be used for registering voters. According
to Jeffrey Fischer of the International Foundation for Election Systems, these options
include:
- making no changes to the system inherited from the previous regime
- reforming the existing system with internationally accepted controls
- establishing a system of registration if none exists
47
The purpose of the Administration and Cost of Elections (ACE) project, and particularly of the
section on voter registration, is to provide some advice on the manner in which such questions
can be approached, and some detailed guidance on the administrative options and their
implications. There is no single 'best' system to adopt, and in each case one must be aware of
and sensitive to the historical development of the country, as well as its social, political and
economic context. However, there are also a number of widely accepted criteria and standards
that should be borne in mind, and we have tried to identify these where possible.
