State Senate likely to vote on bill that lays groundwork for automatic voter registration

There's some good news to report regarding SB 5270, a bill modifying voter registration laws that we strongly support: the Senate Rules Committee has signed off on the legislation and placed it on the Senate's floor calendar for consideration by the full Senate. It's possible that it will be voted out of the chamber sometime during the next few days, but we'll see.

SB 5270 contains a key provision directing county auditors to transfer voter registrations if they receive notice from the Postal Service of an address change. Basically, what this means is that if you move and you notify the Post Office of your change of address, your voter registration will move with you - although it will be changed to "inactive" status,

In my testimony on SB 5270, I asked the Senate Government Operations & Elections Committee to get rid of "inactive" part, so that a registration would remain active after it was transferred, but regrettably, that change wasn't made.

However, it still can be in the future. We'll take slow progress towards automatic voter registration over no progress at all.

We'll be watching SB 5270's status over the next few days and will post an update when and if the Senate moves to a vote on it.