How easy it is to vote in

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The right to vote is enshrined in the Constitution, but how to exercise that right differs across the country.

“The process someone goes through to cast a ballot is different in every state,” said Trey Hood, a political science professor at the University of Georgia. State legislators have a number of legal levers — from early voting to voter ID restrictions — to change how voting works. As a result, some voters will have an easier time voting in elections on Nov. 6 than others.

Same-day voter registration gives a small boost to voter turnout, according to Hood. It is practiced in only 17 states, while an almost equal number of states require voters to register almost a month before they’ll cast their vote. Same-day voter registration will be on the ballot this fall in Maryland.

Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Supreme Court upheld the state’s registration deadline of 20 days prior to an election. The court sided with the state’s argument that it was a reasonable deadline and necessary to prepare for elections over the American Civil Liberties Union’s claim that the deadline disenfranchised thousands.

Voter registration differs not just by when, but how. “Automatic voter registration is a bright spot in voting today,” said Myrna Pérez of the Brennan Center for Justice. Residents receiving a new driver’s license are automatically registered to vote, unless they decline. It has been implemented in 10 states and approved in five more. Automatic registration is on the ballot in Michigan and Nevada this fall. In Oregon, the first state to implement it, registration nearly quadrupled. In the next election — in the fall of 2016 — the state experienced the nation’s largest voter turnout increase.

Electoral rolls, the list of registered voters, are periodically purged by state officials. Purges keep rolls clean of voters who, for instance, have died or moved away. But according to a recent Brennan Center report, purge rates have dramatically increased in the past decade.

“The [purges] are so much bigger, ” Pérez said. Spurred by largely unfounded fears of voter fraud, equipped with faulty data and sometimes in disregard of federal law, some states are purging “whack-a-doodle numbers” of voters, she says. During the 2016 Democratic primary in Brooklyn, thousands of voters showed up to polls and found their names had been removed from the rolls. There had recently been an illegal purge of over 100,000 voters.

Purge rates have not increased equally across the country. The Brennan Center found areas previously under federal oversight because of a history of discriminatory voting had higher levels of purges. In 2013 with the decision of Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act that required states and jurisdictions with a history of discriminatory voter practices to gain federal approval before implementing changes to voting laws and practices. If these jurisdictions — states including South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Arizona and Alaska, and parts of North Carolina, Florida, California, South Dakota, Michigan and New York City — had purge rates on par with the rest of the country, more than 2 million voters would have stayed on electoral rolls for the 2016 election.

Areas previously covered under the Voting Rights Act have done more than purge voters. Last week, the federal Commission on Civil Rights issued a searing report on voting rights. It found that, after the Shelby decision, jurisdictions made changes to voting procedures that previously wouldn’t have been approved because they disproportionately limited minority voter access.

“The overwhelming majority of studies show early voting increases turnout by 2 to 4 percent,” said Paul Gronke, director of the Early Voting Information Center at Reed College. Early voting provides greater convenience to voters, as well as access to the polls for communities challenged to make time on a Tuesday. Hood points out, however, that early voting convenience depends on its investment — a single early voting location for an entire county is not necessarily convenient to most voters.

Ohio and Nebraska both reduced their early voting periods in recent years. Attempts in Florida and North Carolina to do the same were struck down by courts. States often cite fraud to justify cutbacks to early voting. But Gronke says early voting fraud is nearly nonexistent and that cutbacks have been uniformly pushed by Republicans, who typically fare worse among early voters.

Carter Wrenn, a longtime Republican consultant and fixture in North Carolina politics, said in 2016, when the state’s voter restrictions were struck down in court, that voter fraud was an excuse — the aim was political, with African American voters caught in the middle. “Look, if African Americans voted overwhelmingly Republican, [North Carolina lawmakers] would have kept early voting right where it was,” he said.

Since 2010, over a dozen states have implemented stricter voter ID laws. In 2017 alone, 39 bills including more rigorous voter ID laws were introduced in 22 states, according to the Brennan Center. For some states, the passage of a voter ID law kicks off a prolonged dance with courts. After voter ID laws in Arkansas and North Dakota were struck down by courts, both states approved new laws in 2017 that, again, have ended up in court.

Two recent studies examined the impact of voter ID laws in Texas and Michigan during the 2016 presidential election. While fewer than 1 percent of voters lacked photo ID, those that did were disproportionately people of color.

“Long lines at the polls can undermine the voting experience, even to the point of discouraging people from voting,” starts a recent report from the Bipartisan Policy Center. Wait times have generally improved over time, particularly for the worst states. In 2012, Florida had the longest average wait time of 45 minutes, followed by a 34-minute wait in the District.

Wait times arise from multitude of factors, Hood said, from early voting and same-day registration policies to resources like polling places and poll workers. A recent proposal, that was ultimately scrapped, to close three-quarters of the polling places in a majority black Georgia county drew a strong backlash with civil rights groups warning of disenfranchisement.

Lines and wait times vary not just across, but within, states. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, large precincts tend to have longer lines, along with those that are more urban, dense and have a higher proportion of minority voters. In the 2016 election, minorities were six times as likely to wait over an hour to vote, according to a recent study.

Long lines can also be indicative of limited resources. “Many jurisdictions are struggling.” Pérez said. “The nuts and bolts [of running elections] is a perennial problem.” With paltry election budgets, many local election administrators have difficulty getting enough poll workers and up-to-date voting equipment. “We have the best democracy in the world but are not willing to pay for.”

From registration deadlines to IDs, states make a number of decisions that together create a voting system more convenient or burdensome for their residents. These decisions can go on to influence whether a ballot is cast at all. Ease of voting plays a role in voter turnout across states, but voting is shaped by a myriad of factors, including the voters — older and more educated people are more likely to vote — and candidates themselves.