Good News, Bad News: Illinois Enacts Online Registration But No Funds to Pay For It
[Image courtesy of coastalspirit]
With online voter registration coming to more and more states, it’s understandable that some legislatures are moving fast to join the club, but Illinois set a new standard for haste when it enacted a bill – without approving money to cover the cost. The Quad City Times has more:
State lawmakers approved legislation last week that gives Illinoisans the ability to register to vote online.
But in the hubbub of the annual end-of-session rush to adjourn for the summer, members of the House and Senate left town without allocating any money to pay for the proposal.
“It’s something that we’re going to have to figure out,” Rupert Borgsmiller, the director of the Illinois State Board of Elections, said Tuesday. “We’ll have to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
Under the legislation awaiting Gov. Pat Quinn’s signature, the state would establish a system for applicants to register to vote through the state Board of Elections website, using their driver’s license and the last four digits of their Social Security number.
The information would be shared and confirmed by the Illinois Secretary of State’s office so a person’s signature could be transmitted to their home county.
Early estimates put the cost at $1.5 million, with the bulk of that coming out of the Board of Elections budget. The Secretary of State’s office estimates the program will have a start-up cost of $50,000.
Apparently, state and local officials are prepared to make the change regardless because of the perceived cost savings involved:
Borgsmiller said his staff will review what they can do without any money in an attempt to get the program up and running by a July 1, 2014, deadline.
“We want to do this,” he said. “But we’ll just have to do what we can.”
Although there is no upfront cash for now, proponents say online registration is cheaper to manage in the long run. Cook County Clerk David Orr said other states have seen the cost of processing an application drop from 83 to 3 cents per registration because there are fewer employees involved.
If Illinois officials are right about the cost-effectiveness of online registration, it could represent a sea change in the way we think about the cost of reform. Usually, election bills get hung up in debate (or after enactment) because of fiscal/unfunded mandate concerns; Illinois election officials seem to be saying that they are willing to spend their own money now in hopes of saving more of their own money later. That in turn could lead to a better understanding of the administrative costs and benefits of election reform.
That’s not a bad bargain; if it works out, Illinois’ quick but incomplete enactment of online registration could turn out to be the rare case where haste doesn’t actually make waste.