RNLA Advocates Opposition to Mandatory Voter Registration and Mandatory Voting in GOP Platform

The Platform Committee began meeting today, in preparation for next week's Republican National Convention.  

RNLA leadership wrote to the leadership of the Platform Committee last month, requesting that the Committee add language to the platform that opposes mandatory voter registration and mandatory voting:

The RNLA respectfully requests that the Platform Committee add the following language to the 2016 Republican Party platform:

As freedom is essential to the American system of government, neither automatic voter registration nor mandatory voting should be enacted in any state or by the federal government. Citizens should be free to decide whether to participate in the political system through voting or registering to vote.

Automatic voter registration, more properly called mandatory voter registration, is a coercive, intrusive system that does not accomplish its goal of increased voter turnout but does create problems, such as inaccurate voter rolls. Mandatory registration opens the door for fraud by registering people who have no intention of ever voting in the jurisdiction, are transient, or are otherwise added to the rolls when they should not be. Mandatorily registering a citizen when he or she has decided not to register violates a citizen’s basic rights. 

We hope that the Platform Committee, in addition to considering the other important issues that will define the Republican Party for the next four years, will choose to add this important plank to the 2016 Republican Platform.