Modernizing Our Voter Registration System Could Eliminate Millions in Wasteful Spending

Arizona PIRG Education Fund

According to Saving Dollars, Saving Democracy, a new Arizona PIRG Education Fund study, over $33,467,910.00 of public money from 100 counties across the nation was spent on simple registration implementation and error-correction issues in 2008.  

That boils down to more than $86,977.00 of the elections budget in counties with populations fewer than 50,000, over $248,091.00 in counties of 50,000 to 200,000 people, and $1,079,610.00 in jurisdictions of 200,000 to 1,000,000 people.

“Too much time, effort, and money is spent at the local level reacting to and paying for our paper-driven, mistake-riddled registration process. Our system creates challenges for local officials and wastes taxpayer dollars,” stated Diane E. Brown, Executive Director of the Arizona PIRG Education Fund.  “Our local election officials should be able to use the funds that our counties allot for the actual administration of elections, rather than for the endless data-entry and error correction processes created by our current registration system.”

The Arizona PIRG Education Fund recommends implementing a modernized automatic registration system to help eliminate some of the burdens local officials bear and to reallocate funds to enable local officials to more effectively administer our elections.